Greener Than You Think Page 5

  FIVE

  _The South Pacific Sailing Directory_

  _67._ I cannot say the world greeted the end of the North Americancontinent with either rejoicing or regret. Relief, yes. When the news ofthe last demolition was given and it was clear the Grass was unable tobridge the gap, the imaginative could almost hear mankind emit a vastsigh. The world was saved, they could go about their business now,having written off a sixth of themselves.

  I was reminded of Miss Francis' remark that if you cut off a man's legyou bestow upon him a crippled mentality. For approximately twocenturies the United States had been a leg of the global body, a limb soconstantly inflicted with growingpains it caused the other parts towrithe in sympathy. Now the member was cut off and everyone thought thatwith the troublesome appendage gone life would be pleasanter andsimpler. Debtor nations expanded their chests when they remembered UncleShylock was no more. Industrial countries looked eagerly to enlargetheir markets in those places where Americans formerly sold goods. Smallstates whose inhabitants were occasionally addicted to carrying offtourists and holding them for ransom now felt they could dispense withthose foreign undersecretaries whose sole business it had been to writediplomatic notes of apology.

  But it was a crippled world and the lost leg still twitched spectrally.I don't think I speak now as a native of the United States, for with myinternational interests I believe I have become completely acosmopolitan, but for everyone, Englishman, Italian, Afrikander orcitizen of Liberia. The disappearance of America created a revolution intheir lives, a change perhaps not immediately apparent, but eventuallyto be recognized by all.

  It was the trivial things we Americans had taken for granted as part ofour daily lives and taught the rest of the world to appreciate whichwere most quickly missed. The substitution of English, Turkish, Egyptianor Russian cigarettes for good old Camels or Luckies; the impossibilityof buying a bottle of cocacola at any price; the disappearance of thesolacing wad of chewinggum; the pulsing downbeat of a hot band--thesewere the first things whose loss was noticed.

  For a long time I had been too busy to attend movingpictures, exceptrarely, but a man--especially a man with much on his mind--needsrelaxation and I would not choose the foreign movies with their morbidemphasis on problems and crime and sex in preference to the cleancutAmerican product which always satisfied the nobler feelings by showingthe reward of the honest, the downfall of evildoers and the purity oflove and motherhood. Art is all very well, but need it be sordid?

  As I told George Thario, I am no philistine; I think the Parthenon andthe Taj Mahal are lovely buildings, but I would not care to have anoffice in either of them--give me Radio City. I don't mind the highbrowprograms the British Broadcasting Corporation put on; I myself am quitecapable of understanding and enjoying them, but I imagine there arethousands of housewives who would prefer a good serial to bring romanceinto their lives. I don't object to a commercial world in whichcompetitors go through the formality of pretending to be scrupulouslyfair in talking about each others' products, but I must admit I missedthe good old American slapdash advertising which yelled, Buy mydeodorant or youll stink; wash your mouth with my antiseptic or youlllose your job; brush your teeth with my dentifrice or no one will kissyou; powder your face with my leadarsenate or youll keep yourmaidenhead. I would give a lot of money to hear a singing commercialonce more or watch the neon lights north of Times Square urge me to buysomething for which I have no possible use. Living within your income isfine, but the world lacks the goods youd have bought on theinstallmentplan; getting what you need is sound policy, but how manylives were lightened by the young men working their way through college,or the fullerbrushman?

  I think there was a subconscious realization of this which camegradually to the top. In the beginning the almost universal opinion wasthat the loss of the aching limb was for the better. I have heardsocalled cultured foreigners discuss the matter in my presence,doubtless unaware I was an American. No more tourists, they gloated, tostand with their backs to the Temple of Heaven in Pekin and explain thesuperior construction of the Masonic Hall at Cedar Rapids; no morevisitors to the champagne caves at Rheims to inquire where they couldget a shot of real bourbon; no more music lovers at Salzburg orGlyndebourne to regret audibly the lack of a peppy swingtune; no moregourmets in Vienna demanding thick steaks, rare and smothered in onions.

  But this period of smug selfcongratulation was soon succeeded by astrange nostalgia which took the form of romanticizing the lost land.American books were reprinted in vast quantities in the Englishspeakingnations and translated anew in other countries. American movies wererevived and imitated. Fashionable speech was powdered with what wereconceived to be Yankee expressions and a southern drawl was assiduouslycultivated.

  Bestselling historical novels were laid in the United States and popularoperas were written about Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and Kit Carson.Men told their growing sons to work hard, for now there was left no landof opportunity to which they could emigrate, no country where they couldbecome rich overnight with little effort. Instead of fairytales childrendemanded stories of fortyniners and the Wedding of the Rails; and on thestreets of Bombay and Cairo urchins, probably quite unaware of thememorial gesture, could be heard whistling _Casey Jones_.

  But handinhand with this newfound romantic love went a completelypractical attitude toward those Americans still existing in the flesh.The earliest expatriates, being generally men of substance, were wellreceived. The thousands who had crossed by small boats from Canada toGreenland and from Greenland to Iceland to Europe were by definition ina different category and found the quota system their fathers andgrandfathers had devised used to deny their own entrance.

  They were as bewildered and hurt as children that any nation could be atonce so shortsighted and so heartless as to bar homeless wanderers. Webring you knowledge and skills and our own need, they said in effect, wewill be an asset to your country if you admit us. The Americans couldnot understand; they themselves had been fair to all and only kept outundesirable immigrants.

  Gradually the world geared itself to a slower tempo. The gogetterfollowed the brontosaurus to extinction, and we Americans with theforesight to carry on our businesses from new bases profited by theunAmerican backwardness of our competitors. At this time I daresay I wasamong the hundred most important figures of the world. In the marketingand packaging of our original products I had been forced to acquirepapermills and large interests in aluminum and steel; from there theprogression to tinmines and rollingmills, to coalfields and railroads,to shippinglines and machineshops was not far. Consolidated Pemmican,once the center of my business existence, was now but a minor point onits periphery. I expanded horizontally and vertically, delighted to showmy competitors that Americans, even when deprived of America, were notrobbed of the traditional American enterprise.

  _68._ It was at this time, many months after we had given up all hope ofhearing from Joe again, that General Thario received a longdelayedpackage from his son. It contained the third movement of the symphonyand a covering letter:

  "Dear Father--Stuart Thario--General-- I shall not finish this lettertonight; it will be sent with as much of the First Symphony as makes aworthy essence when it goes. The whole is greater than the sum of itsparts, but there is a place (perhaps not in life, but somewhere) for theimperfect, for the incomplete. The great and small alike achievefulfillment, satisfaction--must this be a ruthless denial of allbetween?

  "I have always despised musicologists, makers of programnotes, littlemen who tell you the opening chords of Opus 67 describe Fate Knocking atthe Door or the call of the yellowhammer. A child draws a picture andwrites on it, 'This is a donkey,' and when grown proves it to be aselfportrait by translating the Jupiter Symphony into words. Having saidthis, let me stultify myself--but for private ears alone--as a bit ofpersonal history, not an explanation to be appended to the score.

  "I started out to express in terms of strings and winds the emotionsroused in me by the sight and thoughts of t
he Grass, much as LvB took amistaken idealization of his youth as a startingpoint for Opus 55; butjust as no man is an island, so no theme stands alone. There is a cordbinding the lesser to the greater; a mystic union between all things.The Grass is not an entity, but an aspect. I thought I was writing aboutmy country, conceived of myself in a reversed snobbishness, a haughtyhumility, a proud abasement, as a sort of superior Smetana. (Did youknow that as a boy I dreamed of the day when I should receive mycommission as second lieutenant?)

  Boston, Massachusetts

  "I interrupted this letter to sketch some of the middle section of thefourth movement and I have wasted a precious week following a falsetrail. And of course the thought persists that it may not have been afalse trail at all, but the right one; the business of saying somethingis a perpetual wrestle with doubts.

  "We leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination--Portsmouth probablyand then somewhere in Maine, hoping to wrench from fate the time tofinish the score. It seems more than a little pompous to continue myexplanation. The Grass, the United States, humanity, God--whatever wewrite about we write about the same things.

  "Still there is a limit to individual perception and it seems to me myconcern--at least my musical concern--is enclosed by Canada and Mexico,the Pacific and Atlantic. So, rightly or wrongly, even if the miracleoccur and I do finish in time, I cannot leave. A short distance, such ashort distance from where I scribble these words, Vanzetti died. No morechildish thought than atonement was ever conceived. It is a base andbaseless gratification. Evil is not recalled. So I do not sentencemyself for the murder of Vanzetti or for my manifold crimes; who am I topass judgment, even on me? But all of us, accusers and accused,condemners and condemned, will remain--forever indistinguishable. If therequiem for our faults and our virtues, if the celebration of our pastand the prayer for our resurrection can be orchestrated, then the fourthmovement will be finished. If not--

  Aroostook, Maine

  "By the best calculations we have about three more days. I do not thinkthe symphony can be finished, but the thought no longer disturbs me. Itwould be a good thing to complete it, just as it would be a good thingto sit on fleecy clouds and enjoy eternal, nevermelting, nevercloyingicecreamcones, celestially flavored.

  "The man who is to carry this letter waits impatiently. I must finishquickly before his conviction of my insanity outweighs the promises Ihave made of reward from you and causes him to run from me. My love toMama, the siblings and yourself and kindly regards to the great magnate.

  Joe"

  _69._ About the same time I also received a letter which somehow gotthrough the protective screening of my secretaries:

  "Albert Weener, Savoy Hotel, Thames Embankment, WC1.

  "Sir: You may recall making an offer I considered premature. It is now no longer so. I am at home afternoons from 1 until 6 at 14, Little Bow Street, EC3 (3rd floor, rear). Josephine Spencer Francis"

  In spite of her rudeness at our last meeting, my good nature caused meto send a cab for her. She wore the identical gray suit of years beforeand her face was still unlined and dubiously clean.

  "How do you do, Miss Francis? I'm glad to find you among the lucky ones.Nowadays if we don't hear from old friends we automatically assume theirloss."

  She looked at me as one scans an acquaintance whose name has beenembarrassingly forgotten. "There is no profit for you in thispoliteness, Weener," she said abruptly. "I am here to beg a favor."

  "Anything I can do for you, Miss Francis, will be a pleasure," I assuredher.

  She began using a toothpick, but it was not the oldfashioned goldone--just an ordinary wooden splinter. "Hum. You remember asking me tosuperintend gathering specimens of _Cynodon dactylon_?"

  "Circumstances have greatly altered since then," I answered.

  "They have a habit of doing so. I merely mentioned your offer becauseyou coupled it with a chance to advance my own research as aninducement. I am on the way to develop the counteragent, but to advancefurther I need to make tests upon the living grass itself. The WorldControl Congress has refused me permission to use specimens. I have noprivate means of evading their fiat."

  "An excellent thing. The decrees of the congress are issued for theprotection of all."

  "Hypocrisy as well as unctuousness."

  "What do you expect me to do?"

  "You have a hundred hireling chemists, all of them with a string ofdegrees, at your service. I want to borrow two of them and be landed onsome American mountain, above the snowline, where I can continue towork."

  "Besides being illegal--to mention such a thing is apparentlyhypocritical--such a hazardous and absurd venture is hardly in thenature of a business proposition, Miss Francis."

  "Philanthropic, then."

  "I have given fifty thousand pounds to set up nurseryschools right herein London--"

  "So the mothers of the little brats will be free to work in yourfactories."

  "I have donated ten thousand pounds to Indian famine relief--"

  "So that you might cut the wages of your Hindu workers."

  "I have subscribed five thousand pounds for sanitation in Szechwan--"

  "Thereby lessening absenteeism from sickness among your coolies."

  "I will not stoop to answer your insinuations," I said. "I merelymentioned my gifts to show that my charities are on a worldwide scaleand there is little room in them for the relief of individuals."

  "Do you think I come to you for a personal sinecure? I don't ask if youhave no concern outside selfish interest, for the answer is immediateand obvious; but isnt it to that same selfish interest to protect whatremains of the world? If the other continents go as North America hasgone, will you alone be divinely translated to some extraterrestrialsphere? And if so, will you take your wealth and power with you?"

  "I am supporting three laboratories devoted exclusively toantigraminous research and anyway the rest of the world is amplyprotected by the oceans."

  She removed the toothpick in order to laugh unpleasantly. "Once asalesman always a salesman, Weener. Lie to yourself, deny facts, brazenit out. The world was safe behind the saltband too, in the days whenJosephine Francis was a quack and charlatan."

  "Admitting your great attainments, Miss Francis, the fact remains thatyou are a woman and the adventure you propose is hardly one for a ladyto undertake."

  "Weener, you are ineffable. I'm not a lady--I'm a chemist."

  The conversation deadlocked as I waited for her to go. Oddly enough, inspite of her sex and the illegality of her proposal, I was inclined tohelp her, if she had approached me in a reasonable manner and not withthe uncouth bearing of a superior toward an inferior. If she _could_find a counteragent, I thought ... if she could find a weapon, then thepossibility of utilizing the Grass as a raw material for foodconcentrates, a design still tantalizingly just beyond the reach of ourresearchworkers, might be realized. Labor costs would be cut to aminimum....

  I could not let the woman be her own worst enemy; I was big enough tooverlook her unfortunate attitudes and see through the cranky exteriorto the worthy idealist and true woman beneath. I was interrupted in mythoughts by Miss Francis speaking again.

  "North American landtitles have no value right now, but a man with moneywho knew ahead of time the Grass could be destroyed ..."

  How clumsy, I thought, trying to appeal to a cupidity I don't possess;as if I would cheat people by buying up their very homes for sordidspeculation. "Miss Francis," I said, "purely out of generosity and inremembrance of old times I am inclined to consider helping you. Isuppose you have the details of the equipment you will need, thequalifications of your assistants, and a rough idea of what mountain youmight prefer as a location?"

  "Of course," and she began rattling off a catalogue of items, stabbingthe air with her toothpick
as a sort of running punctuation.

  I stopped her with a raised hand. "Please. Reduce your list to writingand leave it with my secretary. I will see what can be done."

  As soon as she had gone I picked up the phone and cabled Tony Prebleshamto report to me immediately. The decision to send him with Miss Francishad been instantaneous, but had I thought about it for hours no happierdesign could have been conceived. Outside of General Thario there wasnot another man in my organization I could trust so implicitly. Theexpedition required double, no, triple secrecy and Preblesham could notonly guard against any ulterior and selfish aims Miss Francis mightentertain--to say nothing of the erratic or purely feminine impulseswhich could possibly operate to the disadvantage of all concerned--buttake the opportunity to give the continent a general survey, both tokeep in view the utilization of the weed, whether or not it could beconquered; and whatever possibilities a lay observer might see as to theGrass perishing of itself.

  _70._

  "Mr. Albert Weener, Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Perth, Western Australia, A.C.

  "Dear Sir:-- According to yr. instructions our party left Paramaribo on the 9th inst. for Medellin, giving out that we were going to see possible tin deposits near there. At Medellin I checked with our men & was told that work gangs with the stuff needed to make landing fields together with caches of gas & oil, enough for 3 times the flying required had been dropped both at Mt. Whitney & on Banks Island. A. W., I tell you the boys down there are on their toes. Of course I did not tell them this, but gave them a real old fashioned Pep Talk, & told them if they really made good they might be moved up to Rio or Copenhagen or may be even London.

  "Every thing being O.K. in Medellin, we left on the 12th inst., heading at first South to fool any nosey cops & then straight West so as to be out of range of the patrol boats. It was quite late before we could head North and the navigator was flying by instruments so it was not until dawn that we saw land. You can sneer all you like at Bro. Paul (& of course he has not had the benefits of an Education like you, A. W.) but I want to tell you that when I looked out of the port & saw nothing but green grass where houses & trees & mtns. ought to have been, I remembered that I was a backslider & sinful man. However, this is beside the point.

  "The lady professor, Miss Francis I mean, & Mr. White & Mr. Black were both so excited they could hardly eat, but kept making funny remarks in some foreign language which I do not understand. However I do not think there was any thing wrong or disloyal to you in their conversation.

  "You would have thought that flying over so much green would have got tiresome after some time, but you would have been wrong. I am sorry I cannot describe it to you, but I can only say again that it made me think of my Account with my Maker.

  "While I think of it, altho it does not belong here, in Paramaribo I had to fire our local man as he had got into trouble with the Police there & was giving Cons. Pem. a bad name. He said it was on the Firm's account, but I told him you did not approve of breaking the Law at all.

  "We had no trouble sighting the party at Mt. Whitney & I want to tell you, A. W., it was a great relief to get rid of the Scientists altho they are no doubt all right in their way. Some of the work gang kicked at being left behind altho that was in our agreement. They said they were sick of the snow & the sight of the Grass beyond. I said we only had room in the transport for the Banks Is. gang & anyway they would have company now. I promised them we would pick them up on our next trip.

  "Miss Francis & the 2 others acted like crazy. They kept shaking each other's hands & saying We are here, we are here, altho any body but a Nut would have thought saying it was a waste of time as even a small child could have seen that they were. And any way, why any body should want to be there is some thing beyond me.

  "We took off from Whitney on the 14th inst., flying back S. West. There were no land marks, but the navigator told me when we were over the Site of L. A. I have to report that the Grass looked no different in this Area, where it is the oldest. Then we flew North E., looking for the Gt. Salt Lake according to yr. instructions. I am sorry to say that we could not find it altho we flew back & forth for some time, searching while the instruments were checked. The Lake has disappeared in the Grass.

  "We headed North E. by E., finding no land marks except a few peaks above the snow on the Rocky Mtns. I am very glad to say that the Gt. Lakes are still there, altho much smaller & L. Erie & L. Ontario so shrunk I might have missed them if the pilot had not pointed them out. The St. Lawrence River is of course gone.

  "We followed the line of the big Canadian Lakes N., but except for Depressions (which may be Swamps) in the latitudes of the Gt. Bear & Gt. Slave Lakes, there is nothing but Grass. We stayed over night at Banks Is. & it was very cold & miserable, but we were happy to remember that there was no Grass underneath the Snow below us. Next morning (the 16th) after fueling up we took off (with the ground crew) for the Homeward trip.

  "Stopping at Whitney, every thing was O.K. except that I did not see the lady professor (Miss Francis, I mean) as Mr. White and Mr. Black said she was too busy.

  "I will be in London to meet you on the 1st as arranged & give you any further news you want. Until then, I remain, Yrs. Truly, A. Preblesham, Vice-Pres. in Chge of Field Operations, Cons. Pem."

  I cannot say Preblesham's report was particularly enlightening, but itat least squelched any notion the Grass might be dying of itself. I didnot expect any great results from the scientists' expedition, but I feltit worth a gamble. In the meantime I dismissed the lost continent frommy mind and turned to more immediate concerns.

  _71._ The disappearance of American foundries and the withdrawal of theRussian products from export after their second revolution had forced aboom in European steel. English, French, and German manufacturers ofautomobiles, rails, and locomotives, anticipating tremendously enlargedoutlets for their output--even if those new markets still fell short ofthe demand formerly drawing upon the American factories--had earmarkedthe entire world supply for a long time to come.

  Since I owned large blocks of stock, not only in the industries, but inthe rollingmills as well, this boom was profitable to me. I had longsince passed the point where it was necessary, no matter how great myexpenses or philanthropies, for me to exert myself further; but as Ihave always felt anyone who gains wealth without effort is no betterthan a parasite, I was contracting for new plants in Bohemia, Poland,Northern Italy and France. I did not neglect buying heavily into theBriey Basin and into the Swedish oremines to ensure the future supply ofthese mills. In spite of the able assistance of Stuart Thario and theexcellent spadework of Preblesham, I was so busy at this time--for inaddition to everything else the sale of concentrates diagrammed aneverascending spiral--that food and sleep seemed to be only irritatingcurtailments of the workingday.

  It was the fashion when I was a youth for novelists to sneer atbusinessmen and proclaim that the conduct of industry was a simpleaffair, such as any halfwit could attend to with but a portion of hismind. I wish these cynics could have come to know the delicate workingsand balances of my intricate empire. We in responsible positions, andmyself most of all, were on a constant alert, ready for instant decisionor personal attention to a mass of new detail at any moment.

  _72._ On one of the occasions when I had to fly to Copenhagen it wasWinifred and not General Thario who met me at the airport. "General T isso upset," she explained in her vivacious way, "that I had to comeinstead. But perhaps I should have sent Pauline?"

  I assured her I was pleased to see her and hastened to express concernfor her father.

  "Oh, it's not him at all, really," she said. "It's Mama. She's allbothered about Joe."

  I lowered my voice respectfully an
d said I was sure Mrs Thario wasovercome with grief and perhaps I had better not intrude at such a time.

  "Poo!" dissented Winifred. "Mama doesnt know what grief is. She's simplydelighted at Joe's doing a Custer, but she's awfully bothered about hismusic."

  "In what way?" I asked. "Do you mean getting it performed?"

  "Getting it performed, nothing. Getting it suppressed. That a long lineof generals and admirals should wind up in a composer is to her adisgrace which will need a great deal of living down. It preys on hermind. Poor old Stuart is home now reading her choice passages from the_Winning of the West_ by Theodore Roosevelt to soothe her nerves."

  I had been more than a little apprehensive of meeting Mama again, butWinifred's report seemed to reassure me that she would be confined, ifnot to bed, at least to her own apartments. I was sadly disillusioned tofind her ensconced in a comfortable armchair beside a brightly burningfire, the general with a book held open by his thumb. He greeted me withhis usual affection. "Albert, I'm sorry I wasnt able to get to theairport."

  I shook his hand and turned to his wife. "I regret to hear you areindisposed, Mrs Thario."

  "Spare me your damned crocodile tears. Where is my son?"

  "In his last letter he suggested he would remain in our country as longas it existed; however it is possible--even probable he escaped. Let ushope so, Mrs Thario."

  "That's the sort of damned hogwash you feed to green troops, not toveterans. My son is dead. In action. My grandfather went the same way atChancellorsville. Do you think me some whimpering broompusher to weep atthe loss of a son on the battlefield?"

  Stuart Thario put his hand on her arm. "Easy ... bloodpressure ... noexcitement."

  "Not in regimentals," said Mama, and relapsed into silence.

  We had a very uneasy dinner, during which we were unable to discussbusiness owing to the presence of the ladies. Afterward the general andI withdrew with our coffee--he did not drink at home, so I missed theclarity which always accompanied his indulgence--and were deep infigures and calculations when Winifred summoned us hastily.

  "General, Mr Weener, come quickly! Mama ..."

  We hurried into the living room, I for one anticipating Mama if not inthe throes of a stroke at least in a faint. But she was standing uprightbefore the open fire, an unsheathed cavalry saber in her hand. It wasclearly a family relic, for from its guard dangled the golden tassel ofthe United States Army and on its naked blade were little spots of rust,but it looked dangerous enough as she warned us off with a sweep of it.In her other hand I recognized the bulky manuscript of George Thario'sFirst Symphony which she was burning, page by page.

  "Some damned impostor," she said. "Some damned impostor."

  "Harriet," protested the general, "Harriet, please ... the boy's work... only copy ..."

  She fed another leaf to the fire. "... impostor ..."

  "Harriet--" he advanced toward her, but she waved him away with thesharp blade--"can't burn George's work this way ... gave his life ..."

  I had not thought highly of Joe's talents as a musician, believing thembyandlarge to be but reflections of his unfortunate affectations. Ithink I can say I appreciate good music and Ive often taken a great dealof pleasure from hearing a hotelband play Rubinstein's Melody in F, orlike classical numbers, during mealtimes. But even if Joe's symphony wasbut a series of harsh and disjointed sounds, I thought its destruction adreadful thing for Mama to do and the more shocking, aside from anyquestion of artistic taste, because of its reversal of all we associatewith the attitude of true motherhood.

  "Mrs Thario," I protested, "as your son's friend I beg you toconsider--"

  "Impudence," declared Mama, pointing the sword at me so that Iinvoluntarily backed up although already at a respectful distance.

  "Damned impudence," she repeated, feeding another page to the fire."Came into my house, bold as brass and said, 'Cream if you please.' Ha!I'll cream him, I will!" And she made a violent gesture with the saberas though skewering me upon its length.

  I whispered to Constance, who was standing closest, that her mother hadundoubtedly lost her reason and should be forcibly restrained. Unhappilythe old lady's keen ears caught my suggestion.

  "Oho. 'Deranged,' am I? I spend my life making more money than I canspend, do I? I push my way against all decency into the company of mybetters, boring them and myself for no earthly reason, do I? I live oncrackers and milk because Ive spent my nervous energy piling up themeans to buy an endless supply of steaks and chops my doctor forbids meto eat? I starve my employees half to death in order to give the money Isteal from them to some charity which hands a small part of it back, ay?I hire lobbyists or bribe officials to pass laws and then employ othersto break them? I foster nationalist organizations with one hand andbuild up international cartels with the other, do I? I'm crazy, am I?"

  Excited by her own rhetoric she put several pages at once into theflames. Constance pleaded, "Mama, this is all we have left of Joe.Please, Mama."

  "Sundays the church banner is raised above the Flag. I never heard apost chaplain say immortality was contained on pieces of paper."

  "Comfort, then, Mama," suggested Winifred.

  "Creative work," muttered the general.

  "Is it some trivial thing to endure the pangs of childbed that thecreations of men are so exalted? I have offered my life on a battlefieldno less and no more than my grandfather fought on at Chancellorsville.Little minds do not judge, but I judge. I bore a son; he was myextension as this weapon is my extension."

  She thrust the sword forward to emphasize her utterance. "I will nothesitate to judge my son. If he did not die in proper uniform at least Ishall not have him go down as a maker of piano notes instead ofbuglecalls." She threw the balance of the score into the fire andstirred it into a blaze with the steel's point.

  The ringing of the telephonebell put a period to the scene. Constance,who spoke several languages, answered it. She carried on anincomprehensible conversation for a minute and then motioned to me withher head. "It's for you, Mr Weener. Rio. I'll wait till they get theconnection through." She turned to the mouthpiece again and encouragedthe operator with a soothing flow of words.

  I was vastly relieved at the interruption. It was undoubtedly Prebleshamcalling me on some routine matter, but it served to distract attentionfrom the still muttering old lady and give her a chance to subside.

  Preblesham's voice came in a bodiless waver over the miles. "A W? Canyou hear me? I can give you a tip. Just about three hours ahead of theradio and newspapers. Can you understand me? Our big competitor hasbought the adjoining property. Do you get me, A W?"

  I nodded at the receiver as though he could see me, my thoughts racingfuriously ahead. I had understood him all right: the Grass had somehowjumped the saltwater gap and was loose upon another continent.

  _73._ I had about three hours in which to dispose of all my SouthAmerican holdings before their value vanished. Telephone facilities inthe Thario house, though adequate for the transaction of the general'sdaily business, were completely unequal to the emergency. Even if theyhad not been, Mama's occasional sallies from her fireplace fort, saberwaving threateningly, frequently endangered half our communications andwe suffered all the while from the idiosyncrasies of the continentaloperators who seem unable ever to make a clear connection, varying thisannoyance by a habit of either dropping dead or visiting the nearestcafe at those crucial moments when they did not interrupt a tenseinterchange by polite inquiries as to whether msieu had been connected.

  I must say that in this crisis Stuart Thario displayed all his soldierlyqualities to the full. Sweeping aside his domestic concerns as he wouldat the order of mobilization, he became swift, decisive, vigorous. Thefirst call he put through was to the Kristian IV Hotel, engaging everyavailable empty room so that we might preempt as much of the switchboardas possible. Pressing Constance and Winifred into service as secretariesuntil his own officestaff could be summoned and leaving Pauline to dealwith Mama, he had us established in the ho
tel less than threequarters ofan hour from the time Preblesham phoned.

  Even as the earliest calls were being put through a barely perceptiblesignal passed from the general to Winifred and presently large parts ofthe Kristian IV bar were being arranged on a long table at the general'selbow. I had little time for observation since I had to exert all mypowers of salesmanship on unseen financiers to persuade them byindirection that I was facing a financial crisis and they had a chanceto snap up my South American holdings at fractions of their values; butout of the corner of my eye I admired the way Stuart Thario continuouslysipped from his constantly refilled glass without hesitating in hisduplicating endeavors.

  I expected the news to break and end our efforts at any moment, but thequickness with which I had seized upon Preblesham's informationconfirmed the proverb about the early bird; the threehour reprievestretched to five and by the time Havas flashed the news I had liquefiedalmost all of my now worthless assets--and to potential financialrivals. Needless to say I had not trusted solely to the honor of the menwith whom I had conversed, but had the sale confirmed in each case by anagent on the spot who accepted a check, draft, or cash from the buyer.Only on paper did I suffer the slightest loss; in actuality my positionbecame three times as strong as before.

  _74._ The world took the extension of the Grass to South America with aphilosophic calm which can only be described as amazing. Even the Latinsthemselves seemed more concerned with how the Grass had jumped the gapthan with the impending fate of their continent. The generally acceptedtheory was that it had somehow mysteriously come by way of the WestIndies, although as yet the Grass had not appeared on any of thoseislands, and even Cuba, within sight of the submerged Florida Keys, wasapparently safe behind her protective supercyclone fans. But the factthe Grass had appeared first at Medellin in Colombia rather than in thetiny bit of Panama remaining seemed to show it had not come directlyfrom the daggerpointed mass poised above the continent.

  _La Prensa_ of Buenos Aires said in a long editorial entitled "DoesHumanity Betray Itself?": "When the Colossus of the North was evillyenchanted, many Americans (except possibly our friends across the RiverPlate) breathed more easily. Now it would seem their rejoicing waspremature and the doom of the Yankee is also to be the doom of our oldercivilization. How did this verdant disease spread from one continent toanother? That is the question which tortures every human heart from theAntarctic to the Caribbean.

  "It is believed the cordon around North America has not been generallyrespected. Scientists with the noblest motives, and adventurers urged onby the basest, are alike believed to have visited the forbiddencontinent. It may well be that on one of these trips the seeds of thegigantic _Cynodon dactylon_ were brought back. It is well known that theagents of a certain Yankee capitalist have been accustomed to taking offon mysterious journeys near the very spot now afflicted by the emeraldplague."

  It was a dastardly hint and the sort of thing I had long come to lookupon as inseparable from my position. Of all peoples the Latinamericanshave long been known as the most notoriously ungrateful for the work wedid in developing their countries. Why, in some backward parts, thenatives had been content to live by hunting and fishing till wefurnished them with employment and paid them enough so they could buysalt fish and canned meats. Fortunately _La Prensa_'s innuendo, soobviously inspired by envy, was not taken up, and attention soon turnedfrom the insoluble problem of the bridging of the gap to the southwardprogress of the weed itself.

  From the very first, everyone took for granted the victory of the Grass.No concerted efforts were made either to confine or to destroy it. TheWorld Congress to Combat the Grass, far from being inactive, workedheroically, but it got little cooperation from the peoples most closelyaffected. When at one time it seemed as though the congress had got holdof a possible weapon, the Venezuelans refused them the necessary sitesand Brazil would not allow passage of foreign soldiers over its soil.Nationalism suddenly became rampant. "We will die as Ecuadorians,descendants of the Incas," exclaimed the leading newspaper of Quito._El Gaucho_ of Lima pointed out caustically that most of Ecuador's areareally belonged to Peru and the Peruvians were the true descendants ofthe Incas anyway. "We shall all die as unashamed Peruvians!" thundered_El Gaucho_.

  In vain the Church pointed out the difference between Christianresignation and sinful suicide. The reply of most South Americans, whenthey bothered to reply at all, was either that the coming of the Grassexpressed God's will toward them or else to scorn the Church entirely.Imitations of Brother Paul's movement flourished, with additions andrefinements suited to the Latin temperament.

  So the efforts of the World Congress were almost entirely limited tosearching each ship, plane, and individual leaving the doomed continentto be sure none of the fatal seeds were transported. Even thisprecaution was resented as an infringement on national sovereignty, butthe resentment was limited to bellicose pronouncements in thenewspapers; the republics looked on sullenly while their honor wassystematically violated by phlegmatic inspectors.

  _75._ The Grass grew to unheardof heights in the tropical valley of theAmazon. It washed the slopes of the Andes as it had the Cordilleras andthe Rockies, leaving only the highest peaks free of its presence. Itraced across the llanos, the savannas and the pampas and covered thehigh plateaus in a slow relentless growth.

  The people ran from the Grass, not in a straight line from north tosouth, but by indirection, seeking first the seacoasts and then escapefrom the afflicted land. Those North Americans who had eluded the Grassonce did not satisfy themselves with halfmeasures when their sanctuarywas lost, but bought passage on any bottom capable, however dubiously,of keeping out the sea and embarked for the farthest regions.

  _76._ In point of time, I am now about halfway through my narrative. Itis hard to believe that only eleven years have passed since the Grassconquered South America; indeed, it is extraordinarily difficult for meto reconstruct these middle years at all. Not because they were hard orunpleasant--on the contrary, they carried me from one success toanother--but because they have, in memory, the dreamlike quality ofunreality, elusive, vague and tantalizing.

  Like a dream, too, was the actual progress of the Grass. We were all, Ithink, impressed by the sense of repetition, of a scene enacted over andover again. It was this quality which gives my story, now that I lookback upon it, a certain distortion, for no one, hearing it for the firsttime, and not as any reader of these words must be, thoroughly familiarwith the events, could believe in the efforts made to combat the Grass.These efforts existed; we did not yield without struggles; we fought forSouth America as we had fought for North America. But it was a nightmarefight; our endeavors seem retrospectively those of the paralyzed....

  The Grass gripped the continent's great northern bulge, squeezed it intosubmission and worked its way southward to the slender tip, driving theinhabitants before it, duplicating previous acts by sending an influxfrom sparsely to thickly settled areas, creating despair, terror,disruption and confusion; pestilence, hysteria and famine.

  The drama was not played through in one act, but many; to a worldwaiting the conclusion it dragged on through interminable months andyears, offering no change, no sudden twists of fortune, no elusivehopes. At last, mercifully, the tragedy ended; the green curtain camedown and covered the continent to the Strait of Magellan. The Grasslooked wistfully across at Tierra del Fuego, the land of ice and fire,but even its voracity balked, momentarily at any rate, at theinhospitable island and left it to whatever refugees chose its shores asa slower but still certain death.

  South America finally gone, the rest of the globe breathed easier. Itwould be a slander on humanity to say there was actual rejoicing whenthe World Congress sealed off this continent too, but whatever sorrowwas felt for its loss was balanced by the feeling that at long last theperil of the Grass was finally ended. No longer would speculativeGermans, thoughtful Chinese or wakeful Englishmen wonder if thesupercyclone fans were indeed an effective barrier; no longer wouldCubans, Colombia
ns or Venezuelans look northward apprehensively. Oceanicbarriers now confined the peril and though the world was shrunken andhurt it was yet alive. More, it was free from fear for the first timesince the mutated seeds had blown over the saltband.

  I must not give the impression that a wiping off of the Grass from theaccountbooks of humanity was universal and complete. The World Congressperiodically considered proposals for countermeasures. On the top ofMount Whitney Miss Francis still labored. New assistants were flown toher as the old ones wandered down the great rockslide from the old stoneweatherhouse off into the Grass during fits of despondency, went madfrom the realization that, except for problematical survivors on thepolar caps, they were alone in an abandoned hemisphere, or died ofsimple homesickness. In the researchlaboratories of ConsolidatedPemmican formulas for utilizing the Grass were still tinkered with, andthe death of almost every publicspirited man of fortune revealed a willcontaining bequests to aid those seeking means of controlling the weed.

  _77._ It is not, afterall, a detached history of the past twentyoneyears I am writing. Contemporaries are only too well aware of the factsand posterity will find them dehydrated in textbooks. I started out totell of my own personal part in the coming of the Grass, not to take anOlympian and aloof view of the passion of man.

  The very mention of a personal part brings to mind a subject which mightbe painful were I of a petty nature. There were people who, willfullyblind to the facts, held me responsible, in the face of all reason, forthe Grass itself. Although it is difficult to believe, there have beenmany occasions when I have been denounced by demagogues and my bloodcalled for by vicious mobs.

  But enough of morbid retrospection. I think I can say at this time therewas, with the exception of certain Indian nabobs, hardly a wealthy manleft in the world who did not owe in some way the retention of hisriches to me. I controlled more than half the steel industry; I ownedoutright the majority stocks of the world oil cartel; coal, iron,copper, tin and other mines either belonged directly to me or totributary companies in which I held large interests.

  Along with the demagoguery of attributing the Grass to Albert Weenerthere was the agitation for socialism and the expropriation of allprivate property, the attempt to deprive men of the fruit of theirendeavor and reduce everyone to a regimented, miserable level. It ishardly necessary to say that I spared no effort to combat the insidiousagents of the Fourth International. Fortunately for the preservation ofthe free enterprise system, I had tools ready to hand.

  The overrunning of the United States wiped out the gangs which operatedso freely there, but remnants made their escape, taking with them to theolder continents their philosophy of life and property. Gathering nativerecruits, they began following the familiar patterns and would in timeno doubt have divided the world into countless minute baronies.

  However, I was able to subsidize and reason with enough of their leadersto persuade them that their livelihood and very existence rested on abasis of private property and that their great danger came not from eachother, but from the advocates of socialism. They saw the point, andthough they did not cease from warring on each other, or mulcting thegeneral public, they were ruthless in exterminating the socialists andthey left the goods and adjuncts of Consolidated Pemmican and AlliedIndustries scrupulously unmolested.

  Strange as it sounds, it was not my part in protecting the world fromthe philosophy of equality, nor my ramified properties, which gave memy unique position. Unbelievably, because the change had occurred sogradually, industry, though still a vital factor, no longer played thedominant role in the world, but had given the position back to anearlier occupant. Food was once more paramount in global economy. Lossof the Americas had cut the supply in half without reducing thepopulation correspondingly. The Socialist Union remained selfsufficientand uninterested, while Australia, New Zealand and the cultivatedportions of Africa strove to feed the millions of Europeans and Asiaticswhose lands could not grow enough for their own use. The slightestfalling off of the harvest produced famine.

  At this point Consolidated Pemmican practically took over the entirebusiness of agriculture. Utilizing byproducts, and crops otherwise notworth gathering, waste materials, and growths inedible withoutprocessing, with plants strung out all over the four continents and withtremendously reduced shipping costs because of the small compass inwhich so much food could be contained, we were able to let our customersearn their daily concentrates by gathering the raw materials which wentinto them. I was not only the wealthiest, most powerful man in theworld, but its savior and providence as well.

  With the new feeling of security bathing the world, tension dissolvedinto somnolence and the tempo of daily life slackened until it scarcelyseemed to move at all. The waves of anxiety, suspicion and distrust ofan earlier decade calmed into peaceful ripples, hardly noticeable in apondlike existence.

  No longer beset by thoughts or fears of wars, nations relaxed theirpride, armies were reduced to little more than palaceguards, brassbandsand parade units; while navies were kept up--if periodic painting andretaining in commission a few obsolete cruisers and destroyers be sotermed--only to patrol the Atlantic and Pacific shores of the losthemisphere.

  The struggle for existence almost disappeared; the wagescales set byConsolidated Pemmican were enough to sustain life, and in a world oflimited horizons men became content with that. The bickeringcharacteristic of industrial dispute vanished; along with it went theoutmoded weapon of the tradesunion. It was a halcyon world and if, ascranks complained, illiteracy increased rapidly, it could only bebecause with everyman's livelihood assured his natural indolence tookthe upper hand and he not only lost refinements superficially acquired,but was uninterested in teaching them to his children.

  _78._ I don't know how I can express the golden, sunlit quality of thisperiod. It was not an heroic age, no great deeds were performed, noconflicts resolved, no fundamentshaking ideas broached. Quiet, peace,content--these were the keywords of the era. Preoccupation with politicsand panaceas gave place to healthier interests: sports and pageants andgiant fairs. Men became satisfied with their lot and if they to a greatextent discarded speculation and disquieting philosophies they found auseful substitute in quiet meditation.

  Until now I had never had the time to live in a manner befitting mystation; but with my affairs running so smoothly that even Stuart Tharioand Tony Preblesham found idle time, I began to turn my attention to theeasier side of life. Of course I never considered making my permanenthome anywhere but in England; for all its parochialism and oddities itwas the nearest I could come to approximating my own country.

  I bought a gentleman's park in Hampshire and had the outmoded house torndown. It had been built in Elizabethan times and was cold, drafty anduncomfortable, with not one modern convenience. For a time I consideredpreserving it intact as a sort of museumpiece and building another homefor myself on the grounds, but when I was assured by experts that Tudorarchitecture was not considered to be of surpassing merit and I couldfind in addition no other advantageous site, I ordered its removal.

  I called in the best architects for consultation, but my own artisticand practical sense, as they themselves were quick to acknowledge,furnished the basis for the beautiful mansion I put up. Moved bynostalgic memories of my lost Southland I built a great and amplebungalow of some sixty rooms--stucco, topped with asbestos tile. Sincethe Spanish motif natural to this form would have been out of place inEngland and therefore in bad taste, I had timbers set in the stucco,although of course they performed no function but that of decoration,the supports being framework which was not visible.

  It was delightful and satisfying to come into the spacious and cozylivingroom, filled with overstuffed easychairs and comfortable couches,warmed by the most efficient of centralheating systems or to use one ofthe perfectly appointed bathrooms whose every fixture was the best moneycould buy and recall the dank stone floors and walls leading up to amammoth and--from a thermal point of view--perfectly useless fireplaceflanked by the coatso
farms of deadandgone gentry who were content toshuffle out on inclement mornings to answer nature's calls in chillyouthouses.

  So large and commodious an establishment required an enormous staff ofservants, which in turn called for a housekeeper and a steward tosupervise their activities, for as I have observed many times, thefarther down one goes on the wagescale the more it is necessary to hirea highsalaried executive to see that the wage is earned.

  I cannot say in general that I ever learned to distinguish between oneretainer and another, except of course my personal manservant andBurlet, the headbutler whom I hired right from under the nose of theMarquis of Arpers--his lordship being unable to match my offer. But inspite of the confusion caused by such a multiplicity of menials, I oneday noticed an undergardener whose face was tantalizingly familiar. Hetouched his cap respectfully as I approached, but I had the curiousfeeling that it was a taught gesture and not one which came naturally tohim.

  "Have you been here long, my good man?" I asked, still trying to placehim.

  "No, sir," he answered, "about two weeks."

  "Funny. I'm almost certain Ive noticed you before."

  He shook his head and made a tentative gesture with the hoe or rake orwhatever the tool was in his hand, as though he would now, with mypermission, resume his labors.

  "What is your name?" I inquired, not believing it would jog my memory,but out of a natural politeness toward inferiors who always feelflattered by such attention.

  "Dinkman," he muttered. "Adam Dinkman."

  ... That incredibly dilapidated frontlawn, overrun with sicklydevilgrass and spotted with bald patches. Mrs Dinkman's mean bargainingwith a tired man who was doing no more than trying to make a living andher later domineering harshness toward someone who was in no wayresponsible for the misfortune which overcame her. I wondered if shewere still alive or had lost her life in the Grass while an indigent onpublic charity. It is indeed a small world, I thought, and how far wehave both come since I humbled myself in order to put food in my stomachand keep a roof over my head.

  "Thank you, Dinkman," I said, turning away.

  A warm feeling for a fellow American caused me to call in my steward andbid him give Dinkman L100, a small fortune to an undergardener, and lethim go. Though he might not realize it immediately, I was doing him atremendous favor, for an American with L100 in England was bound to dobetter for himself in some small business than he could hope to do as amere servant.

  Looking back upon this too brief time of tranquillity and satisfaction Icannot help but sigh for its passing. Preceded and followed by periodsof turbulence and stress, it stands out in my life as an incrediblemoment, a soothing dream. Perhaps a faint defect, so small as to bealmost unnoticed, was a feeling of solitariness--an inevitableconcomitant of my position--but this was so slight that I could not evendefine it as loneliness and like many another defect it merelyheightened the charm of the whole.

  I had wealth, power, the respect of the world. The unavoidabledetachment from the mob was mitigated by simple pleasures. My estatewas a constant delight; the quaint survivals of feudalism among thetenantry amused me; and though I could not bring myself to pretend aninterest in the absurd affectation of foxhunting, I was well received bythe county people, whose insularity and aloofness I found greatlyexaggerated, perhaps by outsiders not as cosmopolitan as myself.

  Excursions to London and other cities where my presence was demanded orcould be helpful afforded me a frequent change of scene and visits byimportant people as well as more intimate ones by Preblesham and theTharios prevented The Ivies--for so my place was called--from everbecoming dull to me.

  The general fell in love with a certain ale which was brewed on thepremises and declared, in spite of his lifelong rule to the contrary,that it could be mixed with Irish whisky to make a drink so agreeablethat no sane man would want a better. The girls, particularly Winifred,were enchanted with my private woods, the gardens and the deerpark; butMama, throughout their visits, remained almost entirely silent and aloofexcept for the rare remarks which seemed to burst from her as though byan inescapable inward compulsion. These were always insulting and alwaysdirected at me, but I overlooked them, knowing her to be deranged.

  _79._ Perhaps one of the things I most enjoyed about The Ivies waswandering through its acres, breathing through my pores, as it were, thesense of possession. I was walking through the cowslips and violetspunctuating the meadow bordering one of the many little streams, when Icame upon a fellow roughly dressed, the pockets of his shootingjacketbulging and a fishingline in his hand. For a moment I thought him one ofthe gamekeepers and nodded, but his quick look and furtive gesturesinstantly revealed him as a poacher.

  "Youre trespassing, you know," I said with some severity.

  "I know, guvner," he admitted readily, "but I wasnt doing no harm; justlooking at this bit of water here and listening to the birds."

  "With a fishingline in your hands?"

  "Well, now, guvner, that's by way of being a precaution. You see, when Igo out on a little expedition like this, to inspect the beauties ofnature--which I admit I have no right to do, they being on someoneelse's land--I always say to myself, 'Suppose you run into some gentlooking at a lovely fat trout in a brook and he hasnt got no fishlinewith him? What could be more philanthropic than I produce my bit ofstring and help him out?' Aint that a proper Christian attitude,guvner?"

  "Possibly; but what, may I ask, makes your pockets bulge sosuspiciously? Is that another philanthropy?"

  "Accident, guvner, sheer accident. Walking along like this with my headdown I always seem to come upon two or three dead hares or now and thena partridge or grouse. Natural mortality, you understand. Well, whatcould be more humane than to stuff them in my pockets and take them homefor proper burial?"

  "You know in spite of all the Labour Governments and strange doings inParliament, there are still pretty strict laws against poaching."

  "Poaching, guvner? I wouldnt poach. I respect what's yours, just as Irespect what's my own. Trespassing maybe. I likes to look at a littlebit of sky or hear a meadowlark or smell a flower or two, butpoaching--! Really, guvner, you hadnt ought to take away a man'scharacter."

  I thought it a shame so sturdy and amusing a fellow should have to ekeout his living so precariously. "I'll tell you what I'll do," I said."I'll give you a note right now to my head gamekeeper and have him putyou on as an assistant. Thirty shillings a week I think it pays."

  "Well, now, thank you, guvner, but really, I don't want it. Thirty bob aweek! What should I do with it? Nothing but go down to the Holly Treeand get drunk every night. I'm much better off as I am--totalabstinence, in a manner of speaking. No, no, guvner, I appreciate yourbig heart, but I'm happy with my little bit of fish and a rabbit in thepot--why should I set up to be an honest workingman and get dissatisfiedwith my life?"

  His refusal of my wellintentioned offer did not irk me. In a large andtolerant view you could almost say we were both parasites upon The Iviesand it would not hurt me if he stole a little of my game to keep himselfalive. I gave him a note to protect him against any of the keepers whomight come upon him as I had, and we parted with mutual liking; Iremembering for my part that I was an American and all men, poacher andlandlord alike, were created equal, no matter how far each had come fromhis beginnings.

  _80._ Shortly after, Miss Francis ended her long sojourn at MountWhitney and returned to England. The ordeal of living surrounded by theGrass, which had destroyed her assistants, seemed to have made no otherchange in her than the fading of her hair, which was now completelywhite, and a loss of weight, giving her a deceptive appearance offragility at variance with the forthrightness of her manner.

  I put down her immunity to agoraphobia as just another evidence that shewas already mad. Her refusal to accept the limitations of her sex andher complete indifference to our respective stations were mereconfirmations. With her usual disregard of realities she assumed I wouldgo on financing her indefinitely in spite of the hundreds of thousandsof
pounds I had paid out without visible result.

  "Ive really got it now, Weener," she assured me in a tone hardlybefitting a suppliant for funds. "In spite of the incompetents you keptsending, in spite of mistakes and blind alleys, the work on Whitney isdone--and successfully. The rest is routine laboratory work--a matter ofquantities and methods of application."

  "I don't know that I can spare you any more money, Miss Francis."

  She laughed. "What the devil's the matter with you, Weener? Are yourmillions melting away? Or do you think any of the spies you set on mecapable of carrying on--or are you just trying to crack the whip?"

  "I set no spies and I have no whip. I merely feel it may not beprofitable to waste any more money on fruitless experiments."

  She snorted. "Time has streamlined and inflated your platitudes. When Iam too old to work and ready for euthanasia I shall have you come andtalk me to death. To hear you one would almost think you had no interestin finding a method to counter the Grass."

  Her egomania and impertinence were really insufferable; her notion ofher own importance was ludicrous.

  "Interested or not, I have no reason to believe you alone are capable ofscientific discovery. Anyway, the world seems pretty well off as it is."

  She tugged at her hair as if it were false and would come off if shejerked hard enough. "Of course it's well enough off from yourpointofview. It offers you more food than you could eat if you had amillion bellies, more clothes than you could wear out in a millionyears, more houses than you could live in if the million contradictionswhich go to make up any single human were suddenly made corporeal. Ofcourse youre satisfied; why shouldnt you be? If the Grass were to bepushed back and the world once more enlarged, if hope anddissatisfaction were again to replace despair and content, you might notfind yourself such a big toad in a small puddle--and you wouldnt likethat, would you?"

  I had intended all along to give her a small pension to keep her fromwant and allow her to putter around, but her irrational accusations andinsults only showed her to be the kind from whom no gratitude could beexpected.

  "I'm afraid we can be of no further use to each other."

  "Look here, Weener, you can't do this. The life of civilization dependson countering the Grass. Don't tell me the world can go on only halfalive. Look around you and notice the recession every day. Outside ofyour own subservient laboratories what scientific work is being done?Since Palomar and Mount Wilson and Flagstaff went what has happened inastronomy? If you pick up the shrunken pages of your _Times_ or_Tatler_, do you wonder at the reason for their shrinkage or do yourealize there are fewer literates in the world than there were ten yearsago?

  "The Americas were upstart continents, werent they? I am not speakingsarcastically, my point is not a chauvinistic one, not evenhemispherically prideful. And the Old World the womb of culture? But howmuch culture has that womb borne since the Americas disappeared? Withouta doubt there are exactly the same number of composers and painters,writers and sculptors alive on the four continents today as there werewhen there were six, but in this drowsy halfworld how many books ofimportance are being produced?"

  "There are plenty of books already in existence; besides, those thingsgo by cycles."

  "God give me patience; this is the man who has humanity prostrate."

  "Humanity seems quite content in the position you ascribe to it."

  "Of course, of course--that's the tragedy. It's content the same way aman who has just had his legs cut off is content; suffering from shockand loss of blood he enters a merciful coma from which he may neveremerge. The legs do not write the books or think the thoughts, whetherthese activities wait for the cyclical moment or not, but the brain,dependent on the circulation of the blood and the wellbeing of the restof the body for proper functioning. And who are you, little man, tostand in the way of assisting the patient?"

  "I shall not argue with you any further, Miss Francis. If mankind isreally as subject to your efforts as your conceit leads you to believethen I am sure you will find some way to continue them."

  "I'm sure I will," she said, and we left it at that.

  To say her accusations had been gravely unjust would be to defend myselfwhere no defense is called for. I merely remark in passing that I gaveorders to set aside a still greater fund toward finding a reagentagainst the Grass, and to put those who had lately assisted Miss Francisin charge. I did this, not because I swallowed her strained analogyabout a sufferer with his legs cut off, but for purely practicalreasons. The world was very well as it was, but an effective weaponagainst the Grass might at last make possible the neverdiscarded visionof utilizing it beneficially.

  _81._ Meanwhile life went on with a smoothness strange and gratifying tothose of us born into a period of strife and restlessness. No more wars,strikes, riots, agitation for higher wages or social experiments bywildeyed fanatics. Those whose limitations laid out a career of toilperformed their function with as much efficiency as one could expect andwe others who had risen and separated ourselves from the herd carriedour responsibilities and accepted the rewards which went with them. Theships of the World Congress continued patrolling the coasts of thedeserted continents and restrictions were so far relaxed as to permitplaneflights over the area to take motionpictures and confirm the Grasshad lost none of its vigor. Beyond this, the generality of mankindforgot the weed and the regions it covered, living geographically asthough Columbus had never set forth from Palos.

  It was at this time a new philosophic idea was advanced--giving the lieto Miss Francis' dictum that no new thoughts were being thought--whichwas, briefly, that the Grass was essentially a good thing in itself;that the world had not merely made the best of a bad situation, but hadbeen brought to a beneficent condition through the loss of the WesternHemisphere. Mankind had desperately needed a brake upon its heedlesscourse; some instrumentality to limit it and bring it to realization ofits proper province. The Grass had acted as such an agent and now,rightly chastised, man could go about his fit business.

  This concept gained almost immediate popular support, so far as itfiltered down to the masses at all; prominent schoolmen endorsed itwholeheartedly; statesmen gave it qualified approval--"inprinciple"--and the Pope issued an encyclical calling for a return ofChristian resignation and submission. Hardly was the ink dry upon theexpressions of thanksgiving for the punishment which had brought about anew and better frameofmind than the philosophy was suddenly anddramatically tested by events.

  The island of Juan Fernandez, Robinson Crusoe's island, a peak pushedout of the waters of the Pacific 400 miles west of Chile, denselypopulated with refugees and a base for patrolboats, was overrun by theGrass. It was an impossible happening. Every inhabitant had had personalexperience of the Grass and was fearfully alert against its appearance.The patrols covered the sea between it and the mainland constantly; thedistance was too far for windborne seeds. The tenuous hypothesis thatgulls had acted as carriers was accepted simply for want of a better.

  But the World Congress wasted no time looking backward. Although betweenJuan Fernandez and the next land westward the distance was three timesgreater than between it and South America, the Congress seized upon theonly island to which it could possibly spread, Sala-y-Gomez, and made ofit a veritable fortress against the Grass. Not only did ships guard itswaters by day and keep it brilliantly lit with their searchlights atnight, but swift pursuitplanes bristling with machineguns brought downevery bird in flight within a thousand miles.

  The island itself was sown with salt a halfmile thick after being minedwith enough explosives to blow it into the sea. The world, or thatportion of it which had not fully accepted all the implications of thedoctrine of submission, watched eagerly. But the ships patrolled anempty sea, the searchlights reflected only the glittering salinecrystals, the migrant birds never reached their destination. The outpostheld, impregnable. Again everyone breathed easier.

  Five hundred miles beyond this focalpoint, its convict settlement longabandoned, was Easter Island, Rapa
Nui, home of the great monolithswhose origin had ever been a puzzle. Erect or supine, these colossalstatues were strewn all over the island. Anthropologists andarchaeologists still came to give them cursory inspection and it was onsuch a visit an unmistakable clump of Grass was found.

  Immediately the ships were rushed from Sala-y-Gomez, planes carryingtons of salt took off from Australia and the whole machinery of theWorld Congress was swiftly put in operation. But it was too late; EasterIsland was swamped, uninhabited Ducie went next, and Pitcairn, home ofthe descendants of the _Bounty_ mutineers followed before even theslightest precautions could be taken. The Grass was jumping gaps ofthousands of miles in a breathless steeplechase.

  On Pitcairn there was nothing to do but rescue the inhabitants. Vesselsstood by to carry them and their livestock off. The palebrown men andwomen left for the most part docilely, but the last Adams and the lastMcCoy refused to go. "Once before, our people were forced to leavePitcairn and found nothing but unhappiness. We will stay on the islandto which our fathers brought their wives."

  There was no stopping the Grass now, even if the means had been to hand.The Gambiers, the Tuamotus and the Marquesas were swallowed up. Tahiti,dwellingplace of beautiful if syphilitic women, disappeared under agreen blanket, as did the Cook Islands, Samoa and the Fijis. The Grassjumped southward to a foothold in New Zealand and northward intoMicronesia. Panic infected the Australians and a mass migration to thecentral part of the country was begun, but with little hope thesurrounding deserts would offer any effective barrier.

  _82._ My first thought when I heard the Grass for the second time hadbroken its bounds, was that I had perhaps been a little hasty with MissFrancis. It was not at all likely she would succeed where so many bettertrained and better equipped scientists had so far failed, but I felt avicarious sympathy with her, as being out of the picture when all hercolleagues were striving with might and main to save the world;especially after the years she had spent on Mount Whitney. It would bean act of simple generosity on my part, I thought, to give her thewherewithal to entertain the illusion of importance. When all was saidand done, she was a woman, and I could afford a chivalrous gesture evenin the face of her overweening arrogance.

  I am sorry to say she responded with complete illgrace. "I knew youdeventually have to come crawling to me to save your hide."

  "You mistake the situation entirely, Miss Francis," I informed her withdignity. "I am conferring, not asking favors. I have every confidence inmy research staff--"

  "My God! Those guineapig murderers; those discoveryforgers; thosewhitesmocked acolytes in the temple of Yes. You value your life or yourpurse at exactly what theyre worth if you expect those drugstoreclerksto preserve them for you."

  "I doubt if either is in the slightest danger," I assured herconfidently. "Hysterics have lost perspective. Long before the Grassbecomes an immediate concern my drugstoreclerks, with less exaltedopinions of their talents than you, will have found the means to destroyit."

  "A soothing fairytale. Weener, the truth is not in you. You know thereason you come to me is that youre frightened, scared, terrified. Well,strangely enough, I'm not going to reject your munificence. I'll acceptit, because to do God's work is more important than any personal prideof mine or any knowledge that one of the best things _Cynodon dactylon_could do--if I do not take too much upon myself in judging afellowcreature--would be to bury Albert Weener."

  I remained unmoved by her tirade. "When you returned from Whitney youtold me there remained only details to be worked out. About how long doyou think it will be before you have a workable compound?"

  She burst into a laugh and took out her toothpick to point it at me. "Goand put your penny in another slot if you want an answer to an idiotquestion like that. How long? A day, a month, a year, ten years."

  "In ten years--" I began.

  "Exactly," she said and put away the toothpick.

  _83._ I phoned Stuart Thario to fly over right away for a conference."General," I began, "we'll have to start looking ahead and makingplans."

  He hid his mustache with the side of his forefinger. "Don't quiteunderstand, Albert--have details here of activities ... next threeyears ..."

  I pressed the buzzer for my secretary. "Bring General Thario somerefreshment," I ordered.

  The command was not only familiar on the occasion of his visits, butevidently anticipated, for she appeared in a moment with a trayful ofbottles.

  "Bad habit of yours, Albert, teetotalism ... makes the brain cloudy ...insidious." He took a long drink. "Very little real bourbon left ...European imitation vile ... learning to like Holland gin." He drankagain.

  "To get back to the business of making plans, General," I urged gently.

  "Not one of those people getting worried about the Grass?"

  "Not worried. Just trying to look ahead. I can't afford to be caughtnapping."

  "Well, well," he said, "can't pull another South American this time."

  "No, no--and besides, I'm not concerned with money."

  "Now, Albert, don't tell me youve finally got enough."

  "This is not the time to be avaricious," I reproved him. "If the Grasscontinues to spread--and there seems to be little doubt it will--"

  "All of New Zealand's North Island was finished this morning," heinterrupted.

  "I heard it myself; anyway, that's the point. As the Grass advancesthere will be new hordes of refugees--"

  He was certainly in an impatient mood this morning, for he interruptedme again. "New markets for concentrates," he suggested.

  I looked at him pityingly. Was the old man's mind slipping? I wonderedif it would be necessary to replace him. "General," I said gently, "withrare exceptions these people will have nothing but worthless currency."

  "Goods. Labor."

  "Have you seen the previous batches of refugees foresighted enough toget out any goods of value before starting off? And as for labor, allour workers are now so heavily subsidized by the dole that to cut wagesanother cent--"

  "Ha'penny," corrected General Thario.

  "Centime if you like. --would be merely to increase our taxes."

  "Well, well," he said. "I see I have been hasty. What did you have inmind, Albert?"

  "Retrenchment. Cut production; abandon the factories in the immediatepath of the Grass. Fix on reasonably safe spots to store depots of thefinished concentrates, others for raw materials. Or perhaps they mightbe combined."

  "What about the factories?"

  "Smaller," I said. "Practically portable."

  "Hum." He frowned. "You do intend to do business on a small scale."

  "Minute," I confirmed.

  "What about the mines? The steelmills, the oilfields, the airplane andautomobile factories? The shipyards?"

  "Shut them down," I ordered. "Ruthlessly. Except maybe a few inEngland."

  "The countries where theyre located will grab them."

  "There isnt a government in existence who would dare touch anythingbelonging to Consolidated Pemmican. If any should come into existenceour individualistic friends would take care of the situation."

  "Pay gangsters to overturn governments?"

  "They would hardly be legitimate governments. Anyway, a man has a rightto protect his property."

  "Albert," he complained querulously, "youre condemning civilization todeath."

  "General," I said, "youre talking like a wildeyed crackpot. Abusinessman's concern is with business; he leaves abstractions tovisionaries. Our plants will be closed down, because until the Grass isstopped they can make us no profit. Let some idealistic industrialisttake care of civilization."

  "Albert, you know very well no business of any size can operate todaywithout your active support. Think again, Albert; listen to me as afriend; we have been associated a long time and to some extent you havetaken Joe's place in my mind. Consider the larger aspects. Suppose youdon't make a profit? Suppose you even take a loss. You can afford to doit for common humanity."

  "I certainly think I do
my share for common humanity, General Thario,and it cuts me to the heart that you of all people should imply such asentimental and unjust reproach against me. You know as well as I do Ihave given more than half my fortune to charitable works."

  "Albert, Albert, need there be this hypocrisy between you and me?"

  "I don't know what you mean. I only know I called you to evolve specificplans and you have embarked instead on windy platitudes and personalinsult."

  He sat for a long time quietly, his drink untouched before him. I didnot disturb his meditation, but indulged in one on my own account,thinking of all I had done for him and his family. But only a foolishman expects gratitude, or for that matter any reward at all for hiskindnesses.

  At last he broke his silence, speaking slowly, almost painfully. "Ihave not had what could be called a successful life, even though today Iam a wealthy man." He resumed his drink again and I wondered what thisremark had to do with the subject in hand. Perhaps nothing, I thought;he is just rambling along while he reconciles himself to the situation.I was glad he was going to be sensible afterall. Not that it mattered; Icould get many able lieutenants, but for oldtime's sake I was pleased atthe abandonment of his recalcitrance. He relaxed further into the chairwhile I waited to resume the practical discussion.

  "When you first came to me in Washington, Albert, seeking warcontractsfor your microscopic business, I suppose there was even then a mark uponyour forehead, but I was too heavy with the guilt of my own affairs tosee it. We all have our price, Albert, sometimes it is another star onthe shoulderstraps or a peerage or wealth or the apparent safety of ason....

  "I have come a long way with you since then, Albert, through shady dealsand brilliant coups and dark passages which would not bear too muchinvestigation. I'm afraid I cannot go any further with you. You willhave to get someone else to kill civilization."

  "As you choose, General Thario," I agreed stiffly.

  "Wait, I'm not finished. I have always tried, however inadequately, todo my duty. Articles of War ... holding commission in the Armies of theUnited States...." Emotion seemed to be sobering him rapidly. "Duty toyou ... Consolidated Pemmican ... resign commission. Must mention spot... try Sahara...."

  He stood up.

  "Thank you, General Thario," I said. "I shall certainly consider theSahara as location for depots."

  "You won't change your mind about this whole thing, Albert?"

  I shook my head. How could I fly in the face of commonsense to gratifythe silly whim of an old man whose intelligence was clearly not what ithad once been?

  "I was afraid not," he muttered, "afraid not. I don't blame you,Albert. Men are as God created them ... or environment, as the socialistfellers say ... you didnt put the mark on your forehead ... Notsuccessful ... Joe (I called him George but he was Joe all the time)wanted to go to West Point afterall ... First Symphony in the fire ..._I_ burned Joe's First Symphony ... Do you understand me, Albert? ThoughI refuse, I am still guilty ... Cannibal Thario, they said ... Chronoswould be better ... classical allusion escapes the enlistedman...."

  He walked out, still mumbling inarticulately and I sat there saddenedthat a man once alert and vigorous as the general should have come atlast to senility and an enfeebled mind.

  _84._ The defection of General Thario threw a great burden of work uponmy shoulders. Preblesham was able enough in his own sphere, but hisvision was not sufficiently broad to operate at the highest levels. Theprocess of closing down our plants was more complicated than had beenanticipated and Thario's military mind would have been more useful thanPreblesham's theological one. The employees, conceiving through somefantastic logic that their jobs were as much their property as the millsor mines or factorybuildings were mine, rioted and had to bepacified--the first time such a tactic was resorted to in years. In someplaces these misguided men actually took possession of the places wherethey worked and tried to operate them, but of course they were balked bytheir own inefficiency. Human nature being what it is, they tried toblame their helplessness on my control of their sources of raw materialand their consequent inability to obtain vital supplies; as well as thecutting off of light and power from the seized plants, but this was merebuckpassing, always noticeable when some radical scheme fails.

  But the setting up of depots in the Sahara, as General Thario hadsuggested, and by extension, in Arabia, was a different matter. HerePreblesham's genius shone. He flew our whole Australian store of rawmaterials out without a loss. He recruited gangs of Chinese coolieswith an efficiency which would have put an oldtime blackbirder to shame.He argued, cajoled, bullied, sweated for twentyfour hours a day and whenin six months he had completed his task, we had seven depots, two inArabia and five in Africa, complete with four factories, with enoughconcentrates on hand to feed the world for a year--if the world had themeans to pay, which it didnt--and to operate for five.

  During those six months the Grass ravenously snatched morsel aftermorsel. New Zealand's South Island, New Caledonia, the Solomons and theMarianas were gobbled at the same moment. It gorged on New Guinea andsearched out the minor islands of the East Indies as a cat searches forbaby fieldmice in a nest her paw has discovered. It took a bite of theQueensland coast just below the Great Barrier Reef. The next day it wasreported near Townsville and soon after on the Cape York peninsula, theAustralian finger pointing upward to islands where lived little blackmen with woolly hair.

  The people of Melbourne and Sydney and Brisbane took the coming of theGrass with calm anger. Preparations for removal had been made monthsbefore and this migration was distinguished from previous ones by itsorder and completeness. But although they moved calmly in accordancewith clear plans their anger was directed against all those in authoritywho had failed to take measures to protect their beloved land.

  Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania went. The Grass sweptsouthward like a sickle, cutting through South Australia and biting deepwith its point into Western. Although we were amply provided with rawmaterial, considering the curtailment of our activities, Preblesham, onthe spot, could not resist buying up great herds of sheep for a penny onthe pound and having them driven northward in the hope of findingsomehow a means to ship them. I am sorry to say--though I'm afraid Icould have predicted it--this venture was a total loss.

  _85._ Burlet, unfolding the _Times_ on my breakfastplate, coughedrespectfully. "If I could speak to you at your convenience, sir?"

  "What is it, Burlet? Lord Arpers finally come through with a higheroffer?"

  "Not at all, sir. I consider the question of service closed as long asyou find yourself satisfied, sir."

  "Quite satisfied, Burlet."

  "I ad in mind the discussion of quite another matter, sir. Not relatingto domestic issues."

  "Very well, Burlet. Come into the library after breakfast."

  "Very good, sir."

  With a world of problems on my mind I thought it would be wryly amusingto resolve whatever difficulties troubled my butler. Promptly after Ihad settled myself at my desk and before I rang for my secretary, Burletappeared in the doorway, his striped vest smoothed down over his roundedabdomen, every thin hair in place over the dome of his balding head.

  "Come in, Burlet. Sit down. What's on your mind?"

  "Thank you, sir." To my surprise he accepted my invitation and seatedhimself opposite me. "I ave been speculating, sir."

  "Really, Burlet? Silly thing to do. Lost all your wages, I suppose, andwould like an advance?"

  "You misappre--end me, sir. Not speculating on Change. Speculating onthe Grass."

  "Oh. And did you arrive at any conclusion, Burlet?"

  "I believe I ave, sir. As I understand it, scientists and statesmen areexerting their energies to fight the Grass."

  "That's right." I was beginning to be bored. Had the butler fallen preyto one of the graminophile sects like Brother Paul's and gone throughall this rigmarole merely to give me notice previous to immolatinghimself?

  "And so far they ave achieved no success?"
/>
  "Obviously, Burlet."

  "Well then, sir, would it not be a sensible precaution to find somemeans of refuge until and if they find a way to kill the Grass?"

  "There is no 'if,' Burlet. The means will be found, and shortly--of thatI am sure. As for temporary refuge until that time, no doubt it would beexcellent, if practicable. What do you propose--emigration to Mars orfloating islands in the oceans?" Both of these expedients had long agobeen put forth by contestants in the _Intelligencer_.

  "Journeys to other planets would not solve things, sir. Assuming theconstruction of a vessel--an assumption so far unwarranted, if I may sayso, sir--it would accommodate but a fraction of the affectedpopulations. As for floating islands, they would be no more immune toairborne seeds than stationary ones."

  "So it was discovered long ago, Burlet."

  "Quite so, sir. Then, if I may say so, protection must be afforded onthe spot."

  "And how do you propose to do that?"

  "Well, sir, by the building of vertical cities."

  "Vertical cities?"

  "Yes, sir. I believe sites should be selected near bodies of fresh waterand tremendous excavations made. The walls and floor of the excavationsshould be lined with concrete, through which the water is piped. Thecities could be on many levels, the topmost peraps several miles in theair--glass enclosed--and with pipes reaching still igher to bring airin, and completely tight against the Grass. They should beselfcontained, generating their own power and providing their food byydroponic farming. Such cities could hold millions of people now doomeduntil a way is found to kill the Grass."

  There was a faintly familiar ring to the scheme.

  "You seem to have worked it out thoroughly, Burlet."

  "Polishing the plate, sir."

  "Polishing the plate?"

  "It leaves the mind free for cerebration. I ave a full set of blueprintsand specifications, if youd like to inspect them, sir."

  It was fantastic, I thought, and probably quite impractical, but Ipromised to submit his plans to those with more technical knowledge thanI possessed. I sent his carefully written papers to an undersecretary ofthe World Congress and forgot the matter. Idleness certainly led toqueer occupations. Vertical cities--and who in the world had the moneyto erect these nightmare structures? Only Albert Weener--that wasprobably why Burlet took advantage of his position to approach me withthe scheme. Completely absurd....

  _86._ Probably the complaints of the Australians gave final impetus tothe Congress to Combat the Grass. They met in extraordinary session inBudapest and declared themselves the executive body of a worldgovernment, which did not of course include the Socialist Union. Allqualified scientists were immediately ordered to leave whateveremployment they had and place themselves at the disposition of the WorldGovernment. Affluence for life, guaranteed against any fluctuations ofcurrency, was promised to anyone who could offer, not necessarily ananswer, but an idea which should lead to the solution of the problem inhand. While they were issuing their first edicts the Grass finished offthe East Indies, covered threequarters of Australia and attacked thesouthern Philippines.

  Millions of Indonesians traveling the comparatively short distances inanything floatable crowded the already overpopulated areas of Asia. As Ihad predicted to General Thario, these refugees carried nothing withwhich to purchase the concentrates to keep them alive, and conditions offamine in India and China, essentially due to the backwardness of thesecountries, offered no subsistence to the natives--much less to an influxfrom outside.

  The Grass sped northward and westward through the Malay States and Siam,up into China and Burma. In the beginning the Orientals did not flee,but stood their ground, village by village and family by family,opposing the advance with scythes, stones, and pitiful bonfires of theirhousehold belongings, with hoes, flails, and finally with their barehands. But the naked hand, no matter how often multiplied, was as unableto halt the green flow as the most uptodate weapons of modern science.And the Chinese and the Hindus dying at their posts were no more anobstacle than mountain or desert or stretches of empty sea had been.

  It was now deemed expedient, in order to keep public hysteria fromrising to new selfdestructive heights, to tone down and modify the news.This proved quite difficult at first, for the people in theirshortsightedness clamored for the accounts of impending doom which theydevoured with a dreadful fascination. But eventually, when the wildestrumors produced by the dearth of accurate reports were disproved, manyof the people in Western Europe and Africa actually believed the Grasshad somehow failed to make headway on the Asiatic continent and wouldhave remained in their pleasant ignorance had it not been for thepremature flight of masses of Asiatics.

  For the phenomenon contemporary with the close of the Roman Empire wasrepeated. A great, struggling, churning, sprawling, desperate effluxfrom east to west began; once more the Golden Horde was on the march.They did not come, as had their ancestors, on wildly charging horses,threatening with lances and deadly scimitars, but on foot, wretched andbegging. Even had I been as maudlin as Stuart Thario desired I could nothave fed these people, for there were no longer railroads withrollingstock adequate to carry the freight, no fleets of trucks in goodrepair, nor was the fuel available had they existed. The world recededrapidly from the machineage, and as it did so famine and pestilenceincreased in evermounting spirals.

  The mob of refugees might be likened to a beast with weak, almostatrophied legs, but with a great mouth and greater stomach. It movedwith painful slowness, crawling over the face of southern Asia, findinglittle sustenance as it came, leaving none whatever after it left. Thebeast, only dimly aware of the Grass it was fleeing from, couldformulate no thoughts of the refuge it sought. Without plan, hope, ormalice, it was concerned only with hunger. Day and night its empty gutcried for food.

  The starving men and women--the children died quickly--ate first allthat was available in the stores and homes, then scrabbled in the fieldsfor a forgotten grain of rice or wheat; they ate the bark and fungusfrom the trees and gleaned the pastures of their weeds and dung. As theyate they moved on, their faminedistended stomachs craving more to eat,driving the ones who were but one step further from starvation everbefore them.

  Long ago they had chewed on the leather of their footgear and devouredall cats, dogs and rodents. They ate the stiffened and putrid carcassesof draft animals which had been pushed to the last extremity; theyturned upon the corpses of the newly dead and fed on them, and at lengthdid not wait for death from hunger to make a new cadaver, but mercifullyslew the weak and ate the still warm bodies.

  The Asiatic influx was a social accordion. The pulledout end, the highnotes, as it were, the Indian princes, Chinese warlords, arrived quicklyand settled into a welcoming obscurity. They came by plane, with goldand jewels and government bonds and shares of Consolidated Pemmican. Themiddle creases of the accordion came later, more slowly, but as quicklyas money could speed their way. Men of wealth when they began theirjourney, they arrived little more than penniless and were looked uponwith suspicion, tolerated only so long as they did not become a publiccharge.

  The low notes, the thick and heavy pleats, took not days nor weeks normonths, but years to make the trek. They kept but a step ahead of theGrass, traveling at the same pace. They came not alone, but withaccretions, pushing ahead of them millions of their same dispossessed,hungry, penniless kind. These were not greeted with suspicion, but withhatred; machineguns were turned upon the advancing mobs, the fewairplanes in service were commandeered to bomb them, and only lack offuel and explosives allowed them to sweep into Europe and overwhelmmost of it as the barbarians had overwhelmed Rome.

  But I anticipate. While the bulk of the Orientals was still beyond theHimalayas and the Gobi, Europe indulged in a wild saturnalia tocelebrate its own doom. All pretense of sexual morality vanished. Menand women coupled openly upon the streets. The small illprintednewspapers carried advertisements promising the gratification of strangelusts. A new cult of Priapus sprang up and virg
ins were ceremoniouslydeflowered at his shrine. Those beyond the age of concupiscence attendedcelebrations of the Black Mass, although I was told by one communicantthat participation lacked the necessary zest, since none possessed afaith to which blasphemy could give a shocking thrill.

  Murder was indulged in purely for the pleasure. Men and women, hearingof the cannibalism raging among the refugees, adopted and refined it fortheir own amusement. Small promiscuous groups, at the end of orgies,chose the man and woman tiring soonest; the two victims were thereuponkilled and devoured by their late paramours.

  As there was a cult to Priapus, so there was an equally strong cult toDiana. The monasteries and convents overflowed. But in the tension ofthe moment many were not satisfied with mere vows of celibacy. In secretand impressive ceremonies women scarified their tenderest parts withredhot irons, thus proving themselves forever beyond the lusts of theflesh; men solemnly castrated themselves and threw the symbols of theirmanhood into a consuming fire.

  I wouldnt want to give the impression bestial madness of one kind oranother overtook everyone. There were plenty of normal people likemyself who were able to maintain their selfcontrol and canalize thoseenergies promoting crimes and beastly exhibitions in the unrestrainedinto looking forward to the day when the Grass would be gone and sanityreturn.

  Nor would I like anyone to think law and order had completely abdicatedits function. As offenses multiplied, laws grew more severe,misdemeanors became felonies, felonies capital offenses. When death byhanging became the prescribed sentence for any type of theft it wasnecessary to make the punishment for murder more drastic. Drawing andquartering were reinstituted; this not proving an efficient deterrent,many jurists advocated a return to the Roman practice of spreadeagling aman to death; but the churches vigorously objected to this suggestion asblasphemous, believing the ordinary sight of crucified murderers wouldtend to debase the central symbol of Christianity. A less common Romanusage was adopted in its stead, that of being torn by hungry dogs, andto this the Christians did not object.

  But the utmost severity of local and national officials, even whenbacked by the might of World Government, could not cope with the wavesof migrants from the East nor the heedlessness of law they brought withthem. As the Grass pushed the Indians and Chinese westward, they in turnsent the Mongols, the Afghans and the Persians ahead of them. Thesenaturally warlike peoples were displaced, not by force of arms, but bysheer weight of numbers; and so, doubly overcome by being dispossessedof their homes--and by pacifists at that--they vented their pique uponthose to the west.

  As the starving and destitute trickled into Europe and North Africa,giving a hint of the flood to follow, I congratulated myself on theforesight which led to our retrenchment, for I know these raveninghordes would have devoured the property of Consolidated Pemmican with aslittle respect as they did the scant store of Ah Que, Ram Singh orMohammed Ali. My chief concern was now to keep my industrial andorganizational machinery intact against the day when a stable marketcould again be established. To this end I kept our vast staff ofresearchworkers--exempt from the draft of the World Government which hadbeen quite reasonable in the matter--constantly busy, for every day'sdelay in the arresting of the Grass meant a dead loss of profits.

  _87._ Josephine Francis alone, and as always, proved completelyuncooperative. Undoubtedly much of her stubbornness was due to her sex;the residue, to her unorthodox approach to the mysteries of science.When I prodded her for results she snarled she was not a slotmachine.When I pointed out tactfully that only my money made possible thecontinuation of her efforts, she told me rudely to seek the Wailing Wallin Jerusalem before it was covered by the Grass. Again and again I urgedher to give me some idea how long it would be before she could produce achemical even for experimental use against the Grass and each time sheturned me aside with insult or rude jest.

  I had set her up in--or rather, to be more accurate, she had insistedupon--a completely equipped and isolated laboratory in Surrey. As it wasconvenient to my Hampshire place I dropped in almost daily upon her; butI cannot say my visits perceptibly quickened her lethargy.

  "Worried, Weener?" she asked me, absently putting down a coffeepot on astack of microscope slides. "_Cynodon dactylon_'ll eat gold andbanknotes, drillpresses and openhearths as readily as quartz and mica,dead bodies and abandoned household goods."

  I couldnt resist the opening. "Anything in fact," I pointed out, "exceptsalt."

  "A Daniel!" she exclaimed. "A Daniel come to judgment. Oh, Weener, thoushouldst have been born a chemist. And what is the other mistake? Giveme leave to throw away my retorts and testtubes and bunsen burners byrevealing the other element besides sodium _Cynodon dactylon_ refuses.For every mistake there is another mistake which supplements it. Sodiumwas the blindspot in the Metamorphizer; when I find the balancingblindspot I shall know not only the second element which the Grasscannot absorb but one which will be poison to it."

  "I'm not a chemist, Miss Francis," I said, "but it seems to me Ive heardthere are a limited number of elements."

  "There are. And three states for each element. And an infinite number ofconditions governing their application. What's the matter--arent yourtrained seals performing?"

  "All the research laboratories of Consolidated Pemmican are going nightand day."

  "Then what the devil are you hounding me for? Let them find thecounteragent."

  "Two heads are better than one."

  "Nonsense. Two blockheads are worse than one insofar as they tend toregard each other as a source of wisdom. I shall conquer the Grass, Ialone, I, Josephine Spencer Francis--and as soon as possible. Now youhave all the data in its most specific form. And I shall accomplish thisbecause I must and not because I love Albert Weener or care alitmuspaper whether or not his offal is swallowed up. I have done what Ihave done (God forgive me) and I shall undo it, but the matter isbetween me and a Larger Accountant than the clerk who signs your monthlychecks."

  "What do you think about temporary protective measures in themeanwhile?"

  "What the devil do you mean, Weener? 'Temporary protective measures'?What euphuistic gibberish is this?"

  I outlined briefly my butler's plan of vertical cities. Miss Francisstartled me with a laugh resembling the burst of machinegun fire."Someone's been pulling your leg, poor terrified Maecenas. Or else yourebefuddled with too many _Thrilling Wonder Scientifictions_. Pipes intothe stratosphere! Watersupply piped in through concrete walls! Doesntyour mad inventor know the seeds would find these apertures in aninstant?"

  "Oh, those are possibly minor flaws which could be remedied."

  "Well, go and remedy them and leave me to my work. Or pin your faith onsubstantialities instead of flights of fancy."

  I went up to London, my mind full of a thousand problems. I had caughtthe economical British habit of using the trains, conserving the petroland tyres on my car. The first thing I saw on the Marylebone platformwas the crude picture in green chalk of a stolon of _Cynodon dactylon_.What idiot, I thought as I irritably rubbed at it with the sole of myshoe, what feebleminded creature has been let loose to do a thing likethis? The brittle chalk smeared beneath my foot, but the representationremained, almost recognizable. On my way to the Savoy I saw it again,defacing a hoarding, and as I paid off my driver I thought I caughtanother glimpse of the nonsensical drawing on the side of a lorry goingby.

  Perhaps my sensitivity perceived these signs before they were commonproperty, but in a few days they were spread all over Europe, throughwhat insane impulse I do not know. For whatever reason, symbols of theGrass blossomed on the Arc de Triomphe, on the Brandenburger Tor, on thepavement of the Ringstrasse and on the bridges spanning the Danubebetween Buda and Pesth.

  _88._ I find myself, in retrospect, involuntarily telescoping the timeof events. Looking backward, years become days, and months minutes. Atthe time I saw the first reproductions of the Grass in London the thingitself was continents away, busy absorbing the fringes of Asia. But itsheralds and victims went before it, cha
nging the life of man as it haditself changed the face of the world.

  The breakdown of civilization beyond the Channel was almost complete.Only Consolidated Pemmican and the World Government still maintainedcommunication facilities; and with the blocking of the normal ways ofcommerce the World Government found it difficult to spread either newsor decrees to the general public. The most fantastic and contradictoryideas about the Grass were held by the masses.

  When the Grass was in the Deccan and still well below the Yangtze, theAthenians were thrown into panic by the rumor it had appeared inSalonika. At the same time there was wild rejoicing in the streets ofMarseilles based on the belief large stretches of North America hadbecome miraculously free. The cult of the Grass idolaters flourisheddespite the strictest interdictions and great massmeetings werefrequently held during which the worshipers turned their faces towardthe southeast and prayed fervently for speedy immolation. It was quiteuseless for the World Government to attempt to spread the actual facts;the earlier censorship together with a public temper that preferred tobelieve the extremes of good or bad rather than the truth of gradual yetrelentless approach, made people heedless of broadcasts rarely receivedeven by state operated publicaddress systems or of handbills which eventhe still literate could not bother to decipher.

  The idealization of the Socialist Union--once the Soviet Union--whichhad risen and fallen through the years, was quickened among those notenamored of the Grass. There must be some intrinsic virtue in this landwhich had not only been immune to inoculation by the Metamorphizer, butkept the encroaching weed from invading its borders in spite of its longcontinued proximity across Bering Strait and the Aleutians. The Grasshad jumped gaps thousands of ocean miles and yet it had not bridged thatnarrow strip of water. It would have been a shock to these people hadthey known, as I knew and as the World Government had vainly tried totell them, what Moscow had recently and reluctantly admitted: the Grasshad long since crossed into Siberia and was now working its will fromKamchatka to the Lena River.

  The people of Japan, caught between the jaws of a closing vise,responded in a manner peculiar to themselves. The Christians, nowforming a majority, declared the Grass a punishment for the sins of theworld and hoped, by their steadfastness in the face of certain death, toearn a national martyr's crown and thus perhaps redeem those stillbenighted. The Shintoists, on the other hand, agreed the Grass was apunishment--but for a different crime. Had the doctrine of the EightCorners of the World never been abandoned the Japanese would never havepermitted the Grass to overwhelm the Yamato race. The new emperor'sreign name, Saiji, they argued, ought not to mean rule by the people asit was usually interpreted, but rule of the people and they called foran immediate Saiji Restoration, under which the subjects of the Mikadowould welcome death on the battlefield in a manner compatible withbushido, thus redeeming previous aberrations for which they were nowbeing chastised. Both parties agreed that under no circumstances wouldany Japanese demean himself by leaving Nippon and the world wastherefore spared an additional influx from these islands.

  But the Japanese were the only ones who refused to join the westwardstampede plunging the world daily deeper into barbarism. We in Englandhad cause to congratulate ourselves on our unique position. The Channelmight have been a thousand miles wide instead of twenty. The turmoil ofthe Continent and of Africa was but dimly reflected. There was still askeletal vestige of trade, the dole kept the lazy from starvation,railways still functioned on greatly reduced schedules, and the wirelesscontinued to operate from, "Good morning, everybody, this is London," tothe last strains of _God Save the Queen_. Although I was constantlyrasped by inactivity and by the slowness of the researchworkers to finda weapon against the Grass, I was happy to be able to wait out thisterrible period in so ameliorative a spot.

  True, our depots in the Arabian and Sahara deserts were unthreatened byeither the Grass or the horde, but I should have found it uncomfortableindeed to have lived in either place. In Hampshire or London I feltmyself the center of what was left of the world, ready to jump intoaction the moment the great discovery was finally made and the Grassbegan to recede.

  Preblesham, my right hand, flew weekly to Africa and Asia Minor, weedingout those workers who threatened to become useless to us because oftheir reaction to the isolated and monotonous conditions at the depots;keeping the heavily armed guards about our closed continental propertiesalert and seeing our curtailed activities in Great Britain werejudiciously profitable. This period of quiescence suited his talentsperfectly, for it required of him little imagination, but great industryand force.

  I had noticed for some time a slight air of preoccupation and constraintin his demeanor during his reports to me, but I put it down to hisengrossment with our affairs and resolved to make him take an extendedvacation as soon as he could be spared, never dreaming of disloyaltyfrom him.

  I was shocked, then, and deeply wounded when at the close of one of ourconferences he announced, "Mr Weener, I'm leaving you."

  I begged him to tell me what was wrong, what had caused him to come tothis decision. I knew, I said, that he was overworked and offered himthe badly needed vacation. He shook his head.

  "It aint that. Overwork! I don't believe there is such a thing. At leastIve never suffered from it. No, Mr Weener, my trouble is something noamount of vacations can help, because I can't get away from a Voice."

  "Voice, Tony?" Hallucinations were certainly a symptom of overwork. Ibegan mentally recalling names of prominent psychiatrists.

  "A Voice within," he repeated firmly. "I am a sinful man, a miserablebackslider. Maybe Brother Paul was not treading a true path; I doubt ifhe was or I would not have been led aside from following him so easily;but when I was doing his work I was at least trying to do the will ofGod and not the will of another man no better--spiritually, youunderstand, Mr Weener, spiritually--than myself.

  "But now His Voice has sought me out again and I must once more take upthe cross. I feel a call to go on a mission to the poor heathens andurge on them submission to their Father's rod."

  "Among those savages across the Channel! They will tear you limb fromlimb."

  "Christ will make me whole again."

  "Tony, you are not yourself. Youre upset."

  "I am not myself, Mr Weener, I have become as a little child again anddo my Father's bidding. I am upset, yes, turned upsidedown and insideoutby a Force not content to leave men in wrong attitudes or sinfulstates. But upset, I stand upright and go about my Father's business.God bless you, Mr Weener."

  Miss Francis and Preblesham, at opposite ends of the intellectual scale,both maundering on about doing the Will of God and General Thariotalking about marks on foreheads--what sort of feebleminded,retrogressive world was I living in? All the outworn superstitions ofreligion taking hold of people and intruding themselves into otherwisenormal conversation. A wave of madness, akin to the plague of the Grass,must be sweeping over the earth, was my conclusion.

  If General Thario's desertion had thrown an extra weight on myshoulders, Preblesham's burdened me with all the petty details ofroutine. It was now I who had to inspect our depots periodically andmake constant trips into the dangerous regions across the Channel to seethat the shutdown plants were being properly cared for. I resentedbitterly the trick of fate preventing me from finding for any length oftime subordinates to whom I could delegate authority.

  Nor even on whom I could rely. What were Miss Francis and her wellpaidstaff doing all this time? Why had they produced nothing in return forthe fat living they got from me? The Grass was halfway across Asia,lapping the High Pamirs from the south and from the north, digestingKorea, Manchuria, Mongolia, thrusting runners into Turkestan--and stillno progress made against it. It would be a matter of mere months nowuntil our Arabian depots would be in the danger zone. I could onlyconclude these socalled scientists were little better than fakers,completely incompetent when confronted by emergency.

  They were ready enough to announce useless and inapplicable discoveriesand
conclusions; byproducts of their research, they called them, with anobviously selfconscious attempt to speak the language of industry. Theinsects living in and below the Grass were growing ever larger and morenumerous. Expeditions had found worms the size of snakes and bugs big asbirds, happy in their environment. The oceans, they announced, weredrying up, due to the retention of moisture in the soil by the Grass,and added complacently that in a million years or so, assuming the Grassin the meantime covered the earth, there would be no bodies of waterleft. Climates were equalizing themselves, the polar icecaps weremelting and spots previously too cold for _Cynodon dactylon_ were nowcovered. I felt it to be a clear case of embezzlement that they had usedmy money, paid for a specific purpose, to make these useless, ifpossibly interesting, deductions.

  For while they dawdled and read learned papers to each other, the Grasstouched the Persian Gulf and the Caspian, paused before Lake Balkash andreached the Yenisei at the Arctic Circle. Far to the south it jumpedfrom India to the Maldives, from the Maldives to the Seychelles and fromthe Seychelles on to the great island of Madagascar. I hammered thetheme of "Time, time" at Miss Francis, but her only response was ahelpless sneer at my impatience.

  At intervals Burlet inquired of me what progress was being made with hisplan for cities of refuge. I could only answer him truthfully that asfar as I knew the World Government had it under consideration.

  "But--if you will excuse my saying so, sir--in the meantime those peopleare dying."

  "Quite so, Burlet, but there is nothing you or I can do about it."

  For the first time since he entered my service I caught him lookingalmost impertinently at me. I faced him back and he dropped his eyes."Very good, sir. Thank you."

  He had made an understatement when he talked about "those people" dying.Europe was a madhouse. In selfdefense all strangers were instantly putto death and in retaliation the invading throngs spared no native.Peasants feared to stay their ground in terror of the oncoming Orientalsand equally dared not move westward where certain killing awaited themat the hands of those who yesterday had been their neighbors. In aneffort to cling to life they formed small bands and fought impartiallyboth the static and dynamic forces. Farming was practically abandonedand the swollen population lived entirely on wild growth or upon humanflesh.

  In Africa the situation was little better. Internecine wars and slaverymade their reappearance; the South African whites mercilesslyslaughtered the blacks against a possible uprising and the Kaffirs,fleeing northward, repeated the European pattern of overcrowding, famineand pestilence.

  _89._ The day our Arabian depots were abandoned before the oncomingGrass I felt my heart would nearly break with anguish. All that labor,all that forethought, all those precious goods gone. And all becauseMiss Francis and those like her were too lazy or incompetent to do thework for which they were paid. I flew to the spot, trying vainly tosalvage something, but lack of planes and fuel made it impossible.During this trip I caught my first sight of the Grass for years.

  I suppose no human eye sees anything abstractly, but only in relation toother things known and observed. With more than half the world in itsgrip, the towering wave of green bore no more resemblance to itsCalifornia prototype than a brontosaurus to the harmless lizardscuttling over the sunny floor of an outhouse. Between the dirtysugarsands of the desert and the oleograph sky it was a third band ofbrilliant color, monstrously outofplace. A tidalwave would have seemedless alien and awful.

  The distance was great enough so that no individual part stood outdistinctly; instead, it presented itself as a flat belt of green,menacing and obdurate. As my plane rose I looked back at it stretchingnorthward, southward and eastward to the horizon, a new invader in aland weary of many invaders; and I thought of the dead civilizations itcovered: Bactria, Parthia, Babylon; the Empire of Lame Timur, Cathay,Cambodia, and the dominions of the Great Mogul.

  The refuge of mankind narrowed continually, an island diminished dailyby a lapping surf. Africa was thrice beset, in the south fromMadagascar; in the center from the steppingstones in the Indian Ocean,and across the Red Sea where the Grass sucked renewed life from thesteaming jungles and grew with unbelievable rapidity; in the highlandsof Rhodesia and Abyssinia it crept slowly over the plateaus toward theslopes of Kilimanjaro and the Drakensberg. Unless something were donequickly our Sahara depots would go the way of the Arabian ones and wewould be left with only our limited British facilities until the daywhen Africa and Asia would be reconquered.

  The violence and murder which had gone before were tame compared withthe new fury that shook the feartortured people of Europe, helpless inthe nightmareridden days, dreaming through twitching nights of an escapegeographically nonexistent. Dismembered corpses in the streets, arenaspacked with dead bodies, fallow fields newly fertilized with human bloodadded their stench to that of an unwashed, disease riddled continent. Arumor was circulated that there were still Jews alive and those who butyesterday had sought each other in mortal combat now happily united tohunt down a common prey. And sure enough, in miserable caverns andcellars hitherto overlooked, shunning daylight, a few men in skullcapsand prayingshawls were found, dragged out into the disinterestedsunlight with their families and exterminated. It was at this time theGrass crossed the Urals and leaped the Atlantic into Iceland.

  In England, George Bernard Shaw, whose reported death some years beforehad been mourned by those who had never read a word of his, roseapparently from the grave to deliver himself of a last message:

  "If any who wept over my senile and useless carcass had taken the trouble to read _Back to Methuselah_, they could have reassured themselves regarding my premature demise. If ever there was to be a Longliver, that Longliver would have to be me. This was determined by the Life Force in the middle of the XIX Century. That Life Force could not afford to rob a squinting world of a man of perfect vision.

  "Like Haslam (I forget his first name--see my complete works if you're interested) I gave myself out as dead in order to avoid the gawking of a curious and idle multitude. I was recuperating from the labors of my first century in order to throw myself into the more arduous ones of the second.

  "But as I have pointed out so many times, the race was between maturity and the petulant self-destruction of protracted adolescence. Mankind had either to take thought or to perish, and it has chosen (perhaps sensibly after all) to perish. I am too old now to protest against selfindulgence.

  "Is it too late? Is it still possible to survive? The ship is now indeed upon the rocks and the skipper in his bunk below drinking bottled ditchwater. But perhaps a Captain Shotover, drunk on the milk of human kindness rather than rum, will emerge upon the quarterdeck and, blowing his whistle, call all hands on deck before the last rending crash. In that unlikely event, one of those emerging from the forecastle will be G. Bernard Shaw."

  _90._ In spite of the anarchic and unspeakable conditions on theContinent, I could not refrain from making one last tour of inspection.The thought of flooded mines, pillaged factories and gutted mills wasmore than I could bear. The stocks of oil in England were running short,but I commanded enough to fill my great transportplane. We flew low overroads crawling with humanity as a sick animal crawls with vermin. Somecities were empty, obscenely bereft of population; others choked withwanderers.

  The Ruhr was a valley filled with the dead, with men tearing eachother's throats in a frenzy of hunger, with the unburied and the soon tobe buried sleeping sidebyside through restless nights. Not a buildingwas still whole; what had not been torn down in pointless rage had beenrazed by reasonless arson. Not one brick of the great openhearths hadbeen left in place, not one girder of the great sheds remained erect.

  The Saar was in little better case and the mines of Alsace were uselessfor the next quartercentury. The industrial district around Paris hadbeen leveled to the ground by the mobs and Belgium looked as it hadafter the worst
devastation of war. I had expected to find a shambles,but my utmost anticipations were exceeded. I could bring myself to lookupon no more and my pilot informing me that our gas was low, I orderedhim to return.

  We were in sight of the Channel, not far from Calais, when bothstarboard engines developed trouble simultaneously and my pilot headedfor a landingfield below. "What are you about, you fool?" I shouted athim.

  "Gasline fouled. I think I can fix it in a few minutes, Mr Weener."

  "Not down among those savages. We wouldnt have a chance."

  "We wouldnt have a chance over the Channel, sir. I'd rather risk my neckamong fellow humans than in the water."

  "Maybe you would, but I wouldnt. Straighten out the plane and go on."

  "Sorry, Mr Weener; I'm going to have to land here."

  And in spite of my protests he did so. I was instantly proved right, forbefore we came to a stop we were surrounded by an assortment of filthyand emaciated men and women bearing scythes and pitchforks, shouting,yelling and gesticulating, making in fact, such an uproar that nocomprehension was possible. However, there was no misunderstanding theirbrusque motions ordering us away from the plane or the threateningnoises which reinforced the command. No sooner had we reluctantlycomplied than they proceeded methodically to puncture the tires andsmash the propellers.

  My horror at this marooning among the degenerates was not lessened bytheir ugly and illdisposed looks and I feared they would not be contentwith smashing the plane, but would take out their animus against thosewho had not sunk into their own bestial state by destroying us as well.Since I do not speak much French, I could only say to the man nearestme, a sinister fellow in a blue smock with a brown stockingcap on hishead, "C'est un disgrace, ca; je demandez le pourquoi."

  He looked at me for a baffled moment before calling, "Jean, Jean!"

  Jean was even more illfavored, having a scar across his mouth which gavehim an artificial harelip. However, he spoke English of a kind. "Yourairship has been confiscated, citizen."

  "What the devil do you mean? That plane is my personal property."

  "There is no personal property in the Republic One and Indivisible,"replied Jean. "Be thankful your life is spared, Citizen Englishman, andgo without further argumentations."

  I suppose it was reasonable to take this advice, but I could not resistinforming him, "I am not an Englishman, but an American. We also had aRepublic one and indivisible."

  He shook his head. "On your ways, citizen. The Republic does not makedistinctions between one bourgeois and another."

  I looked around for the pilot, but he had vanished. Alone, furious atthe act of robbery and not a little apprehensive, I began walking towardthe coast; but I was not steeled against isolation among the barbariansof the Continent, nor dressed for such an excursion. Between anxietylest I run into a less pompous and more bloodthirsty group ofrepresentatives of the Republic One and Indivisible--when it had comeinto being, how far its authority extended or how long it lasted I neverlearned--and the burning and blistering of my feet in their thinsoledshoes, I doubt if I was more than a few miles from the airfield andtherefore many from the coast when darkness fell. I kept on, tired,anxious, hungry, in no better plight than thousands of other wretcheswho at the same moment were heading the same way under identicalconditions.

  The only advantage of traveling by night was the removal of my fear ofthe intentions of men, but nature made up for this by putting her ownobstacles in my way. The hedgerows which had been allowed to grow wild,the unrepaired roadways, sunken and marked by deep holes and ruts and ahundred other pitfalls made my progress agonizingly slow.

  As the moon rose I had a sudden feeling of being near water, and comingout from a thicket I was confirmed in this by seeing the light breakinto ripples on an uneven surface. But tragically, it was not theChannel I had come upon, merely a river, too wide to cross, which thoughit undoubtedly led to my goal, would increase the length of my journeyby many miles. I'm afraid I gave way to a quite unmanly weakness as Ithrew myself upon the hard ground and thought of my miserable fate.

  I may have lain there for ten minutes, or twenty. The moon went behind acloud, the air grew chilly. I was nerving myself to get up and resume myjourney--though to what purpose I could not conceive for I would belittle better off on a Norman beach than inland--when a timid hand wasput upon my shoulder and someone said questioningly, "Angleterre?"

  I sprang up. "England. Oh, yes, England. Can you help me get there?"

  The moon stayed covered and I could not see his face in the dark."England," he said. "Yes, I'll take you."

  I followed him to a little backwater, where was beached a rowboat. Evenby feel, in the blackness, it seemed to me a very small and frail craftto chance the voyage across the choppy sea, but I had no choice. Iseated myself in the stern while he took the oars, cast off and rowed usdown the river toward the estuary.

  I decided he must be one of that company of smugglers who were ferryingrefugees into Britain despite the strictest watch. No doubt he thinks tomake a pretty penny for tonight's work, I thought, but no coastguardwould turn back Albert Weener. I would pay him well for his help, but hecould not blackmail me for fabulous ransom.

  Still the moon did not come out. My eyes, accustoming themselves to thedark, vaguely discerned the shape opposite me and I saw he was a shortman, but beyond this I could not distinguish his features. The riverbroadened, the air became salty, the wind rose and soon the little boatwas bobbing up and down in a manner to give discomfort to my stomach.The water, building terraces and battlements, reflected enough light toimpress me with the diminutiveness of the boat, set in the vastness onwhich it floated.

  Behind us the French coast was a looming mass, then a thick blob,finally a thin blur hardly perceptible to strained eyes. I wasthoroughly seasick, retching and vomiting over the narrow freeboard.Steadily and rhythmically the man rowed with tireless arms, apparentlyunaffected by the boat's leaping and dropping in response to the impulseof the waves and in my intervals of relief from nausea I reflected thathe must have gained plenty of practice, that he was an old hand inmaking this trip. It was a peculiar way to gain wealth, I thought,caught in another spasm of sickness, enriching oneself on the misery ofothers.

  I vomited and dozed, dozed and vomited. The night was endless, the windwas bitter. What riches, I wondered, could compensate a man for suchhardships? By the time the wanderers got to the Channel they could notvery well have much left and unless my smuggler were gifted withsecondsight he could not know, judging by the way he had accosted me,whether he was carrying a man who could pay L10, L100 or L500 for theaccommodation. Well, I philosophized, it takes all kinds to make aworld, and who am I to say this illicit trafficker isnt doing as muchgood in his way as I in mine?

  I don't know when my nausea finally left me, unless it was after nothingwhatever remained in my stomach. I sat limp and cold, conscious only ofthe erratic bobbing of the little vessel and the ceaseless rhythm of theoars. At last, unbelievably, the sky turned from black to gray. I couldnot believe it anything but an optical illusion in the endless night andI strained to dissipate whatever biliousness was affecting my vision.But it was dawn, sure enough, and soon it revealed the pettish,wallowing Channel and the fragile outline of our boat, even tinier thanI had conceived. I shuddered with more than cold--had I known what acockleshell it was I might have paused before trusting my life soreadily to it.

  Line by line the increasing light drew the countenance of my guide. Atfirst he was nothing but a shape, well muffled, with some kind of flatcap upon his head. A little more light revealed a glittering eye, more,a great, hooked nose with wide nostrils. He was a man of uncertain age,bordering upon the elderly, with a black skullcap under which curledoutward two silverygray horns of hair. The lower part of his face wascovered with a grizzled beard.

  He must have been studying me as intently, for he now broke the silencewhich had prevailed all night. "You are not a poor man," he announcedaccusingly. "How is it you have waited so long?
"

  "I'm afraid youve made a mistake in me, my friend," I told him jovially,"we shan't be making an illegal entry. I am resident in England and cancome home at any time."

  He was silent; from disappointment, I concluded. "Never mind, I'll payyou as much as a refugee--within reason."

  "You are a follower of reason, sir?"

  I tried hard to make out more of his still obscured face for there was anote of irony in his voice. "I believe we'd all be better off ifeveryone were to accept things philosophically. Responsible people willfind a way to end our troubles eventually and in the meantime madnessand violence--" I waved my hand to the French coast behind--"don't helpat all."

  "Ah," he said without pausing in his rowing, "men alone, then, willsolve Man's problem."

  "Who else?"

  "Who Else, indeed?"

  The smuggler's answer or confirmation or whatever the equivocal echo wasirritated me. "You think our problems can be solved from the outside?"

  He managed to shrug his shoulders without breaking the rhythm of hisarms. "Perhaps my English is unequal to understanding what you mean byoutside. All the forces I know are represented within."

  I was baffled and switched the subject to more immediate themes. "Are weabout halfway, do you think?"

  The light now exposed him fully. His hands were small and I doubted ifthe arms extending from them were muscular, but he radiated an air ofgreat vitality. His face was lined, his eyes fierce under outthrusteyebrows, his lips--where the crisp waves of his beard permitted them toshow--stern, but his whole demeanor was not unkindly.

  "It is easy to measure how far we have come, but who can say how far wehave to go?"

  This metaphysical doubletalk annoyed me. "I don't know what is happeningto people," I said. "Either they act like those over there," I gesturedtoward the Republic One and Indivisible, "or else they become mystics."

  "You find questions without immediate answers mystical, sir?"

  "I like my questions to be susceptible to an answer of some kind."

  "You are a man of thought."

  It amused me to speak intimately to this stranger. "I have lived insidemyself a great many years. Naturally my mind has not been idle all thewhile."

  "You have not married?"

  "I never had the time."

  "Ah." He rowed quietly for some moments. "'Never had the time,'" herepeated thoughtfully.

  "You think marriage is important?"

  "A man without children disowns his parents."

  "Sounds like a proverb."

  "It is not. Just an observation. I suppose since you have not had thetime to marry you have devoted your life to good works."

  "I have given employment to many, and help to the pauperized."

  "It is commanded to be charitable."

  "I have given millions of dollars--hundreds of thousands of pounds tophilanthropies."

  "Anonymously, of course. You must be a godly man, sir."

  "I am an agnostic. I do not know if there is such a thing."

  He shook his head. "Beneath us there are fish who do not know it is thesea in which they swim; above us there are birds unaware of the reachesof the sky. The fish have no conception of sky; the birds know nothingof the deep. They are agnostics also."

  "Well, it doesnt seem to do them any harm. Fishes continue to spawn andbirds to nest without the benefits of esoteric knowledge."

  "Exactly. Fish remain fish in happy ignorance; doubt does not cause abird to falter in its flight."

  The sun was pushed into the air from the waters as a ball is pushed bythe thumb and forefinger. The chalkcliffs were outlined ahead of me andI calculated we had little more than an hour to go. "You have chosen astrange way of earning a living, my friend," I ventured at last.

  "Upon some is laid the yoke of the Law, others depend upon the sun forlight," he said. "Perhaps, like yourself, I have committed some greatsin and am expiating it in this manner."

  "I don't know what you mean. I am conscious of no sin--if I understandthe meaning of the theological term."

  "'We have trespassed,'" he murmured dreamily, "'we have been faithless,we have robbed, we have spoken basely, we have committed iniquity, wehave wrought unrighteousness----'"

  "Since the rational world discarded the superstitions of religionhalfacentury ago," I said, "we have learned that good and evil arerelative terms; without meaning, actually."

  For the first time he suspended his oars and the boat wallowed crazily."Excuse me," he resumed his exertions. "Good is evil sometimes and evilis good upon occasion?"

  "It depends on circumstances and the point of view. What is beneficialat one time and place may be detrimental under other circumstances."

  "Ah. Green is green today, but it was yellow yesterday and will be bluetomorrow."

  "Even such an exaggeration could be defended; however, that was not mymeaning."

  "'We have wrought unrighteousness, we have been presumptuous, we havedone violence, we have forged lies, we have counseled evil, we havelied, we have scoffed, we have revolted, we have blasphemed, we havebeen rebellious, we have acted perversely, we have transgressed, we havepersecuted----'"

  "Perhaps you have," I interrupted with some asperity, "but I don'tbelong in that category. Far from persecuting, I have always believed intolerance. Live and let live, I always say. People can't help the colorof their skins or the race they were born into."

  "And if they could they would naturally choose to be white northEuropeangentiles."

  "Why should anyone voluntarily embrace a status of inconvenience?"

  "Why, indeed? 'We have persecuted, we have been stiffnecked, we havedone wickedly, we have corrupted ourselves, we have committedabominations, we have gone astray and we have led astray....'"

  We both fell silent after this catalogue, quite inapplicable to thesituation, and it was with heartfelt thanks I distinguished each faultand seam in the Dover Cliffs as well as the breaking line of surf below.

  I presumed because of what I'd said about legal entry he was notavoiding the coastguard, but with a practiced oar he suddenly veered anddrove us onto a minute sandy beach at the foot of the cliffs, obviouslyunfrequented and probably unknown to officialdom. A narrow yet clearlydefined path led upward; this was evidently his customary haven. Were Ian emotional man I would have kissed the little strip of shingle, as itwas I contented myself with a deep sigh of thanksgiving.

  My guide stood on the sand, smoothing the long, shapeless garment hewore against his spare body. He had taken a small book from his pocketand was mumbling some unintelligible words aloud. I was struck again bythe nervous vigor of the man which had given him the strength to rowall night against a harsh sea--and presumably would generate the energynecessary for the return trip.

  I pulled out my wallet and extracted two L100 banknotes. No one couldsay Albert Weener didnt reward service handsomely. "Here you are, myfriend," I said, "and thank you."

  "I accept your thanks." He bowed slightly, putting his hands behind himand moving toward his boat.

  Perversely, since he seemed bent on rejecting my reward, I becameanxious to press it upon him. "Don't be foolish," I argued. "This is aperilous game, this running in of refugees. You can't do it forpleasure."

  "It is a work of charity."

  I don't know how this shabby fellow conceived charity, but I had neverunderstood that virtue to conflict with the law. "You mean you ferry allthese strays for nothing?"

  "My payment is predetermined and exact."

  "You are foolish. Anyone using your boat for illegal entry would be gladto give everything he possessed for the trip."

  "There are many penniless ones."

  "Need that be your concern--to the extent of risking your life anddevoting all your time?"

  "I can speak for no one but myself. It need be my concern."

  "One man can't do much. Oh, don't think I don't sympathize with yourattitude. I too pity these poor people deeply; I have given thousands ofpounds to relieve them."

&n
bsp; "Their plight touches your heart?"

  "Indeed it does. Never in all history have so many been so wretchedthrough no fault of their own."

  "Ah," he agreed thoughtfully. "For you it is something strange andpathetic."

  "Tragic would be a better word."

  "But for us it is an old story."

  He pushed his boat into the water. "An old story," he repeated.

  "Wait, wait--the money!"

  He jumped in and began rowing. I waved the banknotes ridiculously inthe air. His body bent backward and forward, urging the boat away fromme with each pull. "Your money!" I yelled.

  He moved steadily toward the French shore. I watched him recede into theChannel mists and thought, another madman. I turned away at last andbegan to ascend the path up the cliff.

  _91._ When I finally got back to Hampshire, worn out by my ordeal andfeeling as though I'd aged ten years, there was a message from MissFrancis on my desk. Even her bumptious rudeness could not conceal thejubilation with which she'd penned it.

  "To assuage your natural fear for the continued safety of AlbertWeener's invaluable person, I hasten to inform you that I believe I havea workable compound. It may be a mere matter of weeks now before weshall begin to roll back _Cynodon dactylon_."

  SIX

  _Mr Weener Sees It Through_

  _92._ Whether it was from the exposure I endured on that dreadful tripor from disease germs which must have been plentiful among thecontinental savages and the man who rowed me back to England, I don'tknow, but that night I was seized with a violent chill, an aching headand a dry, enervating fever. I sent for the doctor and went to bed andit was a week before I was myself enough to be cognizant of what wasgoing on around me.

  During my illness I was delirious and I'm sure I afforded my nursesplentiful occasion to snicker at the ravings of someone of noinconsiderable importance as he lay helpless and sick. "Paper andpencil, you kep callin for, Mr Weener--an you that elpless you couldntold up your own and. You said you ad to write a book--the Istory of theGrass. To purge yourself, you said. Lor, Mr Weener, doctors don'tprescribe purges no more--that went out before the first war."

  I never had a great deal of patience with theories of psychology--theyseem to smack too much of the confessional and the catechism. But as Iunderstand it, it is claimed that there exists what is called anunconscious--a reservoir of all sorts of thoughts lurking behind theconscious mind. The desires of this unconscious are powerful and tend tobe expressed any time the conscious mind is offguard. Whether thismetaphysical construction be valid or not, it seemed to me that somesuch thing had taken place while I was sick and my unconscious, orwhatever it was, had outlined a very sensible project. There was noreason why I shouldnt write such a history as soon as I could take thetime from my affairs. Certainly I had the talent for it and I believedit would give me some satisfaction.

  My pleasant speculations and plans for this literary venture wereinterrupted, as was my convalescence, by the loss of the Sahara depots.When I got the news, my principal concern wasnt for the incalculabledamage to Consolidated Pemmican. My initial reaction was amazement atthe ability of the devilgrass to make its way so rapidly across asterile and waterless waste. In the years since its first appearance ithad truly adapted itself to any climate, altitude, or conditionconfronting it. A few months before, the catastrophe would have plungedme into profound depression; now, with the resilience of recovery addedto Miss Francis' assurance, it became merely another setback soon to beredeemed.

  From Senegal, near the middle of the great African bulge, to Tunis atthe continent's northern edge, up through Sardinia and Corsica, thelatest front of the Grass was arrayed. It occupied most of Italy andclimbed the Alps to bite the eastern tip from Switzerland. It tookBavaria and the rest of Germany beyond the Weser. Only the Netherlands,Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal--a geographical purist might haveadded Luxembourg, Andorra and Monaco--remained untouched upon theContinent. Into this insignificant territory and the British Isles werepacked all that was left of the world's two billion people: a blinded,starving mob, driven mad by terror. How many there were there,squirming, struggling, dying in a desperate unwillingness to give upexistence, no matter how intolerable, no one could calculate; any morethan a census could be taken of the numbers buried beneath the Grass nowholding untroubled sway over ninetenths of the globe.

  Watchers were set upon the English coast in a manner reminiscent of1940. I don't know exactly what value the giving of the alarm would havebeen; nevertheless, night and day eyes were strained through binocularsand telescopes for signs of the unique green on the horizon or thefirst seed slipping through to find a home on insular soil.

  Miss Francis' optimistic news had been communicated to the authorities,but not given out over the BBC. This was an obvious precaution against awave of concerted invasion by the fear obsessed horde beyond theChannel. While they might respect our barriers if the hope for survivalwas dim, a chance pickup of the news that the Grass was doomed would besure to send its destined victims frenziedly seeking a refuge until theconsummation occurred. If such a thing happened our tiny islands wouldbe suffocated by refugees, our stores would not last a week, and weshould all go down to destruction together.

  But in the mysterious way of rumor, the news spread to hearten theislanders. They had always been determined to fight the Grass--ifnecessary as the Chinese had fought it till overwhelmed--indeed, whatother course had they? But now their need was only to hold it at bayuntil the new discovery could be implemented. And there was good chanceof its being put to use before the Grass had got far beyond the Rhine.

  _93._ Now we were on the last lap, my interest in the progress of thescientific tests was such that I insisted upon being present at everyfield experiment. For some reason Miss Francis didnt care for this andtried to dissuade me, both by her disagreeable manner (hereccentricity--craziness would undoubtedly be a more accurateterm--increased daily) and by her assurances I couldnt possibly findanything to hold my attention there. But of course I overruled her anddidnt miss a single one of these fascinating if sometimes disappointingtrials.

  I vividly recall the first one. She had reiterated there would benothing worth watching--even at best no spectacular results wereexpected--but I made myself one of the party just the same. The theaterwas a particularly dismal part of Dartmoor and for some reason, probablyknown only to herself, she had chosen dawn for the time. We arrived,cold and uncomfortable, in two saloon cars, the second one holdingseveral long cylinders similar to the oxygen or acetylene tanks commonlyused in American industry.

  There was a great deal of mysterious consultation between Miss Francisand her assistants, punctuated by ritualistic samplings of thevegetation and soil. When these ceremonies were complete four stakes anda wooden mallet were produced and the corners of a square, about 200 by200, were pegged. The cylinders were unloaded, set in place at equalintervals along one side of the square, turncocks and nozzles withelongated sprayjets attached, and the valves opened.

  A fine mist issued forth, settling gently over the stakedout area. MissFrancis, her toothpick suspended, stood in rapt contemplation. At theend of thirty minutes the spray was turned off and the containers rolledback into the car. Except for the artificial dew upon it, the moorlooked exactly as it had before.

  "Well, Weener, are you going to stand there and gawk for the nexttwentyfour hours or are you coming back with us?"

  I could tell by their expressions how horrified her assistants were atthe rudeness to which I'd become so accustomed I no longer noticed it."It's not a success, then?" I asked.

  "How the devil do I know? I have no crystal ball to show me tomorrow.Anyway, even if it works on the miscellaneous growth here I havent theremotest idea how the Grass will react to it. This is only a remotepreliminary, as I told you before, and why you encumbered us with yourinquisitiveness is more than I can see."

  "Youre coming back tomorrow, then?"

  "Naturally. Did you think I just put this on for fun--in order to
goaway and forget it? Weener, I always knew those who made money werentparticularly brilliant, but arent you a little backward, even for abillionaire?"

  There was no doubt she indulged in these boorish discourtesies simply tobuoy up her own ego, which must have suffered greatly. She presumed onher sex and my tolerance, taking the same pleasure in baiting me, onwhom she was utterly dependent, as a terrier does in annoying a SaintBernard, knowing the big dog's chivalry will protect the pest.

  When we returned the square was clean of all growth, as though scrapedwith a sharp knife. Only traces of powdery dust, not yet scattered by abreeze, lay here and there. I was jubilant, but Miss Francis affected anair of contempt. "Ive proved nothing I didnt know before, merelyconfirmed the powers of the deterrent--under optimum conditions. It haskilled ordinary grass and some miscellaneous weeds--and that's all I cansay so far. What it will do to inoculated _Cynodon dactylon_ I have nomore idea than you."

  "But youre going to try it on the Grass immediately?"

  "No, I'm not," she answered shortly.

  "Why not?"

  "Weener, either leave these things in my hands or else go do themyourself. You annoy me."

  I was not to be put off in so cavalier a manner and after we parted Isent for one of her assistants and ordered him to load a plane with someof the cylinders and fly to the Continent for the purpose of using thestuff directly against the Grass. When he protested such a test would bequite useless and he could not bring himself to such disloyalty to his"chief," as he quaintly called Miss Francis, I had to threaten him withinstant discharge and blacklist before he came to his senses. I'm sorryto say he turned out to be a completely unreliable young man, for theplane and its crew were never heard from again--a loss I felt deeply,for planes were becoming scarce in England.

  _94._ As a matter of fact everything, except illegal entrants whocontinued to evade the authorities, was becoming scarce in England now.The stocks of petroleum, acquired from the last untouched wells andrefineries and hoarded so zealously, had been limited by the storagespace available. We had a tremendous amount of food on hand, yet withour abnormally swollen population and the constant knowledge that theBritish Isles were not agriculturally selfsufficient, wartime rationingof the utmost stringency was resorted to. The people accepted theirhardships, lightened by the hope given by Miss Francis' work--in turnmade possible only by me.

  Though I chafed at her procrastination and forced myself to swallow herincivilities, I put my personal reactions aside and with hardly anexception turned over my entire scientific resources to Miss Francis,making all my research laboratories subordinate to her, subject only toa prudent check, exercised by a governing board of practicalbusinessmen. The government cooperated wholeheartedly and thousandsworked night and day devising possible variants of the basic compoundand means of applying it under all conditions. It was a race between theGrass and the conquerors of the Grass; there was no doubt as to theoutcome; the only question now was how far the Grass would get before itwas finally stopped.

  The second experiment was carried out on the South Downs. The containerswere the same, the ceremonious interchange repeated, only the areastaked out covered about four times as much ground as the first. Wedeparted as before, leaving the meadow apparently unharmed, returning tofind the square dead and wasted.

  Once more I urged her to turn the compound directly upon the Grass."What if it isnt perfected? What harm can it do? Maybe it's advancedenough to halt the Grass even if it doesnt kill it."

  She stabbed at her chest with the toothpick. "Isnt it horrible to livein a world of intellectual sucklings? How can I explain what's going on?I have a basic compound in the same sense ... in the same sense, let ussay, that I know iodine to be a poison. Yes, that will do. If I wish tokill a man--some millionaire--and administer too little, far from actingas a poison it will be positively beneficial. This is a miserablyoversimplified analogy--perhaps you will understand it."

  I was extremely dissatisfied, knowing as I did the rapidly worseningsituation. The Grass was in the Iberian Peninsula, in Provence,Burgundy, Lorraine, Champagne and Holland. The people were restive, nolonger appeased by the tentative promise of redemption through MissFrancis' efforts. The BBC named a date for the first attack upon theGrass, contradicted itself, said sensible men would understand thesematters couldnt be pinned down to hours and minutes. There were riots atClydeside and in South Wales and I feared the looting of my warehousesin view of the terrible scarcity of food.

  It wasnt only the immediate situation which was bad, but the longrangeone. Oil reserves in the United Kingdom were practically exhausted. Sowere non-native metals. Vital machinery needed immediate replacement. Assoon as Miss Francis was ready to go into action the strain upon ourobsolescent technology and hungerweakened manpower would be crippling.

  The general mood was not lightened by the clergy, professionallygloating over approaching doom, nor by the speculations of thescientists, who were now predicting an insect and aquatic world. Man,they said, could not adapt himself to the Grass--this was proved to thehilt by the tragedy of the Russian armies in the Last War--but insectshad, fishes didnt need to, and birds, especially those who nested abovethe snowline, might possibly be able to. Undoubtedly these orders couldin time produce a creature equal if not superior to _Homo sapiens_ andthe march of progress stood a chance to continue after an hiatus of afew million years or so.

  The combination of these airy and abstract speculations with theirslowness to produce something tangible to help us at this crisis firstangered and then profoundly depressed me. I could only look upon thewhole conglomeration--scientists, politicians, common man and all--asthoroughly irresponsible. I remembered how I had applied myselfdiligently, toiling, planning, imagining, to reach my present positionand how a fraction of that effort, if it had been exerted by thesepeople, could stop the Grass overnight.

  In this frameofmind my thoughts occupied themselves more and more withthe idea I had uttered during my illness. To write a history of theGrass would at least afford me an escape from the daily irritation ofconcerning myself exclusively with the incompetents and blunderers. Notbeing the type of person to undertake anything I was not prepared tofinish, I thought it might be advisable to keep a journal, first to getmyself in the mood for the larger work and later to have a daytodayaccount of momentous events as seen by someone uniquely connected withthe Grass.

  _95._ _July 14_: Lunch at Chequers with the PM. Very gloomy. Says Miss Fmay have to be nationalized. Feeble joke by undersecretary aboutnationalization of women proving unsuccessful during the Bolshevikrevolution. Ignoring this assured the PM we would get a more definitedate from her during the week. Privately agreed her dilatorinessunpardonable. I shall speak to F tomorrow.

  Home by 5. Gardeners slovenly; signs of neglect everywhere. Called in Sand gave him a good goingover; said he was doing the best he could.Sighed for the good old days--Tony Preblesham would never have shuffledlike that. Shall I have to get a new steward--and would he be anyimprovement?

  Very bored after dinner. Almost decided to start the book. Scribbled afew paragraphs--they didnt sound too bad. Sleep on it.

  _July 15_: BBC this morning reported Grass in the Ardennes. Thisundoubtedly means a new influx from the Continent--the coastguard ispractically powerless--and we will be picked clean. In spite of the newsF absolutely refuses to set a definite date. Kept my temper withdifficulty.

  Came home to be annoyed by Mrs H telling me K, one of the housemaids,had been got into trouble by an undergardener. Asked Mrs H whether ornot it wasnt her function as a housekeeper to take care of such details.Mrs H very tart, said in normal times she was perfectly capable ofhandling the situation, but with everything going to pieces she didntknow whether to turn off K or the undergardener, or both, or neither. Ithought her attitude toward me symptomatic of the general slackness anddemoralization setting in all over. Instructed her to discharge themboth and not bother me again with such trivia. Tried to phone the PM,but the line was down. Another sy
mptom.

  As a sort of refuge, went to the library and wrote for four solid hours,relating the origin of the Grass. Feeling much better afterwards, rangfor Mrs H and told her merely to give K a leave of absence and dischargeonly the guilty undergardener. I could see she didnt approve myleniency.

  _July 16_: A maniac somehow got into The Ivies and forced his way intothe library where I was writing. A horrible looking fellow, with atortured face, he waved a pistol in front of me, ranting phrasesreminiscent of oldfashioned soapbox oratory. I am not ashamed to admitnervousness, for this is not the first time my life has been threatenedsince attaining prominence. Happily, the madman's aim was as wild as hisspeech, and though he fired four shots, all lodged in the plaster. S,Mrs H and B, hearing the noise, rushed in and grabbed him.

  _July 17_: A little upset by the episode of the wouldbe assassin, Idecided to go up to London for the day. The library would be unusableanyway, while the walls and ceiling were being repaired.

  _July 18_: Shaking experience. Can write no more at the moment.

  _Later_: I was walking in Regent Square when I saw her. As beautiful andmysterious as she was last time. But now my tongue was not tied;oblivious to restraint and ridicule, I shouted, rushed after her.

  I-- But, really, that is all. I rushed after her, but she disappeared inthe idle crowd. People looked at me curiously as I pushed and shoved,peering, crying, "Wait, wait a minute!" But she was gone.

  _Still later_: I shall go back to The Ivies tonight. If I stay longer inLondon I fear I shall be subject to further hallucinations.

  If it was an hallucination and not the Strange Lady herself.

  _July 19_: Grass reported in Lyons. F has new experiment scheduled fortomorrow. Despite upset condition, I wrote six pages of my history. Thework of concentrating, under the circumstances, was terrific but I feelrepaid for my effort. I am the captain of my soul.

  S says the cottagers no longer paying rent. Told him to evict them.

  _96._ _July 20_: F's test today on some underbrush in a wood. Think infuture I shall go only to inspect the results; the spraying is verydull. Wrote four pages and tore them up. S says it is impossible toevict tenants. Asked him if there were no law left in England and heanswered, "Not very much." I shall begin looking about for a newsteward. Hear the Tharios are in London. Grass reported beyond theVosges.

  _July 21_: Usual aftermath of F's experiment. Not a sign of vegetationleft. In the face of this, simply maddening that she doesnt get intoaction directly against the Grass. Got no satisfaction from her bydirect questioning. Can her whole attitude be motivated by some sort ofdiseased and magnified femininity?

  _July 22_: Noticed Burlet at breakfast had left off his stripedwaistcoat. Such a thing has never happened before. Not surprised when herequested interview. He began by saying it had been quite some timesince he put before me his plan for what he calls "vertical cities." Notcaring for his attitude, pointed out that it was quite outside myprovince as an employer to wetnurse any schemes of his; nevertheless,out of kindness I had brought it to the attention of the proper people.

  "But, Mr Weener, sir, people are losing their lives."

  "So you said before, Burlet."

  "And if nothing is done the time will come when you also will be killedby refugees or drowned by the Grass."

  "That borders on impertinence, Burlet."

  "I ope I ave never forgot my place. But umanity takes precedence overumility."

  "That will be all, Burlet."

  "Very good, sir. If convenient, I should like to give notice as of thefirst."

  "All right, Burlet."

  When he left, I was unreasonably disturbed. If I had pressed hisscheme--but it was impracticable....

  _July 23_: The Grass is in the neighborhood of Antwerp and questions arebeing asked in Parliament. Unless the government can offer satisfactoryassurances of action by F they are expected to fall tomorrow. Assuredthe PM I would put the utmost pressure on F, but I know it will do nogood. The woman is mad; I would have her certified and locked up in anasylum in a second if only some other scientist would show some signs ofgetting results. Did not write a word on my history today.

  _July 24_: Debate in Parliament. Got nothing from F but rudeness. Wroteconsiderably on my book. I would like to invite Stuart Thario to TheIvies, if for no other reason than to show I bear no malice, but perhapsit would not be wise.

  Riots in Sheffield.

  _July 25_: Vote of confidence in Commons. The PM asked the indulgence ofthe House and played a record of Churchill's famous speech: "... Turningto the question of invasion ... We shall not fail; we shall go on to theend ... We shall defend our island whatever the cost. We shall fight onbeaches, in cities and on the hills. We shall never surrender." Result,the government squeaked through; 209 for, 199 against, 176 abstaining.No one satisfied with the results.

  Mrs H came to me in great distress. It seems the larder is empty ofchutney, curry and worcestershire sauce and none of these items can bepurchased at Fortnum & Mason's or anywhere else. I assured her it was amatter of indifference to me since I did not care particularly for anyof these delicacies.

  Mrs H swept this aside as entirely irrelevant. "No wellconductedestablishment, Mr Weener, is without chutney, curry or worcestershire."The insularity of the English is incredible. I have not tasted cocacola,hotdogs, or had a bottle of ketchup for more than a year, but I don'tcomplain.

  The Grass is in the Schelde estuary, almost within sight of the Englishcoast. I got nothing written on my history today.

  _July 26_: Invited to see film of a flight made about six months agoover what was once the United States. Very moving. New York stillrecognizable from the awkward shapes assumed there by the Grass. In theharbor a strange mound of vegetation. Several of the ladies wept.

  I went home and thought about George Thario and carried my history ofthe Grass up until the time it crossed Hollywood Boulevard.

  _July 27_: The Grass is now in Ostend, definitely in sight from thecoast.

  _July 28_: Grass in Dunkirk.

  _July 29_: F astounded me this morning by coming to The Ivies, anunprecedented thing. She is (finally!!!) about to undertake testsdirectly against the Grass and wants airplanes and gasoline. I impressedupon her how limited our facilities are and how they cannot be fritteredaway. She screamed at me insanely (the woman is positively dangerous inthese frenzies) and I finally calmed her with the assurance--onlysuperficially exact--that I was dependent on the authorities for thesesupplies. At length I persuaded her she could just as well use motorlaunches since the Grass had now reached the Channel. She reluctantlyagreed and grumblingly departed. My joy and relief in her belated actionwas dampened by her arrogant intemperance. Can a woman so unbalancedreally save humanity?

  _July 30_: Wrote.

  _July 31_: Wrote.

  _August 1_: Attended at breakfast by footman. Extremely awkward andirritating. Inquired, what had happened to Burlet? Reminded he had left.Annoyed at this typical lack of consideration on the part of theemployed classes. We give them work and they respond with a lack ofgratitude which is amazing.

  In spite of vexations, I brought my history up to the wiping out of LosAngeles. Leave with F and party at midnight for the tests.

  _August 4_: It is impossible for me to set down the extent of thedepression which besets me. F's assurance she has learned a great dealfrom the tests and didnt for a minute expect to drive the Grass back atthis point doesnt counter the fact that her latest spray hadnt theslightest effect on the green mass which has now replaced the sandybeaches of the Pas de Calais. At great personal inconvenience Iaccompanied her on her fruitless mission and I didnt find her excuses,even when clothed in scientific verbiage, adequate compensation for thewasted time.

  _August 5_: The government finally fell today and there is talk of acoalition of national unity, with the Queen herself assumingextraordinary powers. There was general agreement that this would bequite unconstitutional, but that won't prevent its being done anyway.


  In spite of the stringent watch against refugees the population has soenlarged that rations have again been cut. Mrs H says she doesnt knowwhere the next meal is coming from, but I feel she exaggerates. Farmers,I hear, absolutely refuse to deliver grain.

  _August 6_: Interview with S C. Offered him all the facilities now atthe disposal of F. I admitted I was not without influence and couldalmost promise him a knighthood or an earldom. He said, "Mr Weener, Idon't need the offer of reward; I'm doing my best right now. But I'mproceeding along entirely different lines than Miss Francis. If I wereto take her work over at this point I'd nullify whatever advance she'smade and not help my own research by as much as an inch." If C can'treplace F, I don't know who can. Very despondent, but wrote just thesame. Can't give in to moods.

  _97._ _August 7_: BBC announced this morning the Grass is in Bordeauxand under the Defense of the Realm Act every man and woman isautomatically in service and will be solely responsible for a hundredsquare feet of the island's surface, their stations to be assigned bythe chief county constable. Tried to get Sir H C--no phone service.

  Wrote on my history till noon. What a lot of bluster professionalauthors make over the writing of a book--they should have had thenecessity every businessman knows for sticking eternally to it, andexperience in a newspaper cityroom--as I had. Just before luncheon anoverworked looking police constable bicycled over with designations ofthe areas each of us is responsible for. Sir H very thoughtfullyallotted the patrolling of my library to me.

  _August 8_: Grass in Troyes and Chalons. The assignment of everyone to adefinite post has raised the general spirit. Ive always said disciplinewas what people needed in times of crisis--takes their minds off theirtroubles.

  The prime minister spoke briefly over the wireless, announcing he was inconstant touch with all the researchworkers, including Miss Francis.Annoyed at his going over my head this way--a quite unnecessarydiscourtesy.

  Marked incivility and slipshodness among the staff. Spoke to Mrs H andto S; both agreed it was deplorable, saw no immediate help for it. Soupset by petty annoyances I could not write on my history.

  _August 9_: Glorious news. The BBC announced the antiGrass compoundwould be perfected before Christmas.

  _August 10_: F denies validity of the wireless report. Said no one withthe remotest trace of intelligence would make such a statement. "Is itimpossible to have the compound by then?" I asked her.

  "It's not impossible to have it by tomorrow morning. Good heavens,Weener, can't you understand? I'm not a soothsayer."

  Can it be some scientist I know nothing of is getting ahead of her? Verydishonorable of the government if so.

  Despite uncertainties wrote three more pages.

  _August 11_: Riots in Manchester and Birmingham. Demagogues pointing outthat even if the antiGrass compound is perfected by Christmas it will betoo late to save Britain. They don't count apparently on the Channelholding the plague back for long. Possible the government may fall,which won't disturb me, as I prefer the other party anyway.

  _August 12_: After a long period of silence from the Continent, RadioMondiale went on the air from Cherbourg asking permission for thegovernment to come to London.

  _August 13_: The watch on the south and east coasts has been tripled,more as a precaution against the neverceasing wave of invasion than theGrass. It has been necessary to turn machineguns on the immigrantboats--purely in selfdefense.

  The rioting in the Midlands has died down, possibly on the doubleassurance that permission for the removal of the French government hadbeen refused (I cannot find out, to satisfy my idle curiosity, if it isstill the Republic One and Indivisible which made the request or whetherthat creation was succeeded by a less eccentric one), and that Christmaswas a conservative estimate for the perfection of the compound--a lastpossible date.

  Brought my history up to the Last War.

  _August 14_: Very disheartening talk with the PM today. It seems thewhole business of setting a date was an error from beginning to end. Noone gave any such promise. It dare not be denied now, however, for fearof the effect upon the public. I must begin to think seriously of movingto Ireland.

  _August 15_: Grass reported in the Faeroes. French Channel coast coveredto the mouth of the Seine. What is the matter with F? Is it possible thefailure of the last experiment blasted all her hopes? If so, she shouldhave told me, so I might urge on others working along different lines.

  Motored to the laboratory and spoke about moving to Ireland. She agreedit might be a wise precaution. "You know, Weener, the jackass who saidChristmas mightnt have been so far out afterall." She seemed veryconfident.

  Came home relieved of all my recent pessimism and brought my book downto the overrunning of the United States. I am not a morbid man, but Ipray I may live to set foot on my native soil once again.

  _August 16_: No new reports from France. Can the Grass be slowing down?Wrote furiously.

  _August 17_: Wrote for nearly ten hours. Definitely decided to dischargeS; he is thoroughly incapable. No word from France, but there is ageneral feeling of great optimism.

  _August 18_: Bad news, very bad news. The Grass has jumped two hundredmiles, from the Faeroes to the Shetlands and we are menaced on threesides. Went up to London to arrange for a place in Ireland. I cannot sayI was well received by the Irish agent, a discourteous and surly fellow.Left orders to contact Dublin direct as soon as phone service isresumed.

  _August 19_: It seems Burlet has been interesting all sorts of radicalsand crackpots in his scheme for glassenclosed cities. Local MP veryreproachful; "You should have warned me, Mr Weener." I asked him if hehonestly thought the idea practical. "That isnt the point. Not the pointat all."

  As far as can be learned France is completely gone now. It is supposed afragment of Spain and Portugal are still free of the Grass and a littlebit of Africa. It is almost unbelievable that all these millions haveperished and that the only untouched land left is these islands.

  Many irritations. The phone is in order for perhaps halfanhour a day.Only the wireless approximates a normal schedule. Wrote six pages.

  _August 20_: Dublin apologized profusely for the stupidity of theiragent and offered me a residence near Kilkenny and all the facilities ofTrinity for F and her staff. Told F, who merely grunted. She then statedshe wanted a completely equipped seagoing laboratory for work along theFrench coast. I said I'd see what could be done. Much encouraged bythis request.

  _August 21_: The arrogance and shortsightedness of the workingclass isbeyond belief. They refuse absolutely to work for wages any longer. Inow have to pay for all services in concentrates. Even the warehouseguards, previously so loyal, will accept nothing but food. I foresee arapid dwindling of our precious supplies under this onslaught.

  _August 22_: With all the shipping Consolidated Pemmican owns I can findnothing suitable for F's work. Almost decided to outfit my personalyacht _Sisyphus_ for that purpose. It would be convenient to use for theIrish removal if that becomes necessary.

  Burlet's ideas have found their way into Parliament. The IndependentLabour member from South Tooting asked the Home Minister why nothing hadbeen done about vertical cities. The Home Minister replied that Britonsnever would permit a stolon of the Grass to grow on English soil andtherefore such fantastic ideas were superfluous. ILP MP not satisfied.

  _August 23_: Ordered the _Sisyphus_ to Southampton for refitting. Itwill cost me thousands of tons of precious concentrates, besides lyingfor weeks in a dangerously exposed spot. But I can make a better deal inSouthampton than elsewhere and I refuse to be infected by the generalcowardice of the masses.

  Speaking of the general temper, I must say there has been a stiffeningof spirit in the last week or so; very laudable, and encouraging to onewho believes in the essential dignity of human nature.

  No new report on the Grass for four days.

  _August 24_: The member from South Tooting has introduced a bill tostart construction at once of one of Burlet's cities. The bill calls forthe conscr
iption of manpower for the work and whatever materials may benecessary, without compensation. The last clause is of course aimeddirectly at me. Naturally, the bill will not pass.

  _August 25_: Flew to Kilkenny. I fear this will be one of the last planetrips I can make for a long time, since the store of aviation gasolineis just about exhausted. The place is much more beautiful thanHampshire, but deplorably inconvenient. However, since the Irish arestill willing to work for money, I have ordered extensive alterations.

  _August 26_: I have stopped all sale of concentrates. Since money willbuy nothing, it would be foolish of me to give my most precious assetaway. Of course we cut the deliveries down to a mere dribble some timeago, but even that dribble could bleed me to death in time. I havedoubled the wages--in concentrates--of the warehouse guards in fear ofpossible looting.

  _98._ _August 29_: The last three days have been filled with terror andsuspense. It began when a patrolling shepherd on the Isle of Skye founda suspicious clump of grass. All conditions favored the invader: thespot was isolated, communications were difficult, local labor wasinadequate. The exhaustion of the fuel supply made it impossible to flygrassfighters in and men had to be sent by sea with makeshift equipment.Happily there were two supercyclone fans at Lochinvar which had beenshipped there by mistake and these were immediately dispatched to thethreatened area.

  The clump was fought with fire and dynamite, with the fans preventingthe broken stolons from rooting themselves again. After a period ofgrave anxiety and doubt there seems to be no question this particularperil has been averted--not a trace of the threatening weed remains. TheQueen went personally to Westminster Abbey to give thanks.

  _August 30_: Work on the _Sisyphus_ proceeding slowly. I have decided tokeep my own cabin intact and have the adjoining one fitted for a writingroom. Then I can accompany F on her experimental excursions and not loseany time on my book, which is progressing famously. What a satisfactioncreative endeavor is!

  _August 31_: The bill for the construction of Burlet's city was debatedtoday. The PM stated flatly that the Grass would be overcome before thecity could be built. (Cheers) The Hon. Member from South Tooting rose toinquire if the Right Hon. Member could offer something besides his bareword for this? (Groans, faint applause, cries of "Shame," "Nogentleman," etcetera) The Home Minister begged to inform the Hon. Memberfrom South Tooting that Her Majesty's government had gone deeply intothe question of the socalled vertical cities long before the Hon. Memberhad ever heard of them. Did the Hon. Member ever consider, no matter howmany precautions were taken in the building of conduits for a watersupply, that seeds of the Grass would undoubtedly find their way inthrough that medium? Or through the air intakes, no matter how high?(Dead silence) The Hon. Member from Stoke Pogis asked if the oppositionto his Hon. friend's bill wasnt the result of pressure by a certaincapitalist, concerned principally with the manufacture of concentratedfoods? (Groans and catcalls)

  The Chancellor of the Exchequer inquired if the Hon. Member meant toimpugn the integrity of the government? (Cries of "Shame," "No,""Unthinkable," etcetera) If not, what did the Hon. Member imply?(Obstinate silence) Since no answer was forthcoming he would move for adivision. Result: the bill overwhelmingly voted down.

  Since the Skye excitement everyone is inclined to be jittery and nervesare stretched tightly. When I told F she had missed a great opportunityto test her formula in Scotland she blew up and called me a meddlingparasite. This is pretty good coming from a dependent. Only myforbearance and consideration for her sex kept me from turning her outon the spot.

  _September 1_: Encouraged by the Skye episode, a group of volunteers isbeing formed to attempt an attack on the Grass covering the ChannelIslands. More than can possibly be used are offering their services. Isubscribed L10,000 toward the venture.

  Preparations for moving to Kilkenny almost complete. Even if F getsgoing by December and the Scottish repulse is permanent, I believe Ishall be better off in Ireland until the first definite victory is wonagainst the Grass.

  _September 5_: The Grass moved again and this time all attempts torepulse it failed. It is now firmly entrenched on both the Orkneys andthe Hebrides. Terrible pessimism. Commons voted "No confidence" 422 to117 and my old friend D N is back in office.

  _September 6_: _Sisyphus_ almost ready. Find I can get a crew to workfor wages when not in port. Luncheon at Chequers. PM urges me not toleave England as it might shake confidence. I told him I would considerthe matter.

  _September 7_: F says she is ready to make new tests and what is holdingup work on the _Sisyphus_? Replied it was complete except for my cabins.She had the effrontery to say these werent important and she was readyto go ahead without me. I pointed out that the _Sisyphus_ was myproperty and it would not sail until I was properly accommodated.

  _99._ _September 8_: I shall not move to Ireland afterall. The Grass hasa foothold in Ulster.

  _September 9_: The Irish are swarming into Scotland and Wales.Impossible to keep them out.

  _September 10_: Donegal overrun.

  _September 12_: On board the _Sisyphus_. Wrote an incredible amount;still beyond me how anybody can call the fashioning of a book work. Weleft Southampton last night on a full tide and are now cruising theChannel about four miles from the French coast. It is quiteunbelievable--under this tropical green blanket lies the continent ofEurope, the home of civilization. And the bodies of millions, too.Except for a few gulls who shriek their way inland and returndejectedly, there is not a living thing in sight but the Grass.

  I have reserved the afterdeck to myself and as I sit here now,scribbling these notes, I think what impresses me more than anythingelse is the feeling of vitality which radiates from the herbaceouscoast. The dead continent is alive, alive as never before--whollyalive; moving with millions of sensitive feelers in every direction. Forthe first time I have a feeling of sympathy for Joe's constant talk ofthe beauty of the Grass, but in spite of this, the question which comesto my mind is, can you speak glibly about the beauty of something whichhas strangled nearly all the world?

  _Later_: Sitting on the gently swaying deck, I was moved to add severalpages to my history. But now we are approaching the narrower part of theChannel and the sea is getting choppy. I shall have to give up myjottings for a while.

  _Still later_: F finally picked a spot she considered suitable--theremains of a small harbor--and we anchored. I must say she wasoverfussy--one cove is pretty much the same as another these days.Possibly she was so choosy in order to heighten her importance.

  Repetition of the involved etiquette of inspecting the intended victimand turning on the sprays; only this time the suppressed excitementanticipating possible success made even the preliminaries interesting.Miss Francis and her assistants retired for a mysterious conferenceimmediately after the application and I stayed up late talking with thecaptain till he was called away by some duty. It is now nearly two A M--ina few hours we shall know.

  _September 13_: Horribly shaken this morning to find the Grassunaffected. Even wondered for a moment if it were conceivable that Fwould never find the right compound--that nothing could hurt the Grass.Had I been illadvised in not going more seriously into Burlet's verticalcities?

  F very phlegmatic about it. Says another twelve hours of observation maybe of value. She and A rowed ashore over the runners trailing in thewater and with great difficulty succeeded in hacking off a few runnersof the sprayed Grass. I thought her undertaking this hazard an absurdpiece of bravado--she might just as well have sent someone else.

  Disregarding her rudeness in not inviting me, I accompanied her unaskedto her laboratory-cabin. She laid the stolons on an enamelsurfaced tableand busied herself with some apparatus. I could not take my eyes fromthese segments of the Grass. They lay on the table, not specimens ofvegetation, but stunned creatures ready to spring to vigorous andvengeful life when they recovered. It was impossible not to pick one upand run it through my fingers, feeling again the soft, electric touch.

  Miss Francis' prepara
tions were interminable. If she follows such anelaborate ritual for the mere checking of an unsuccessful experiment nowonder she is taking years to get anywhere. My attention wandered and Istarted to leave the cabin when I noticed my hand still held one of thespecimens.

  It was withered and dry.

  _100._ _September 17_: The enthusiasm greeting the discovery that F'sreagent mortally affected the Grass was only tempered by the dampeningthought that its action had been incomplete. What good was the lethalcompound if its work were final only when the sprayed parts weresevered?

  F seemed to think it was a great deal of good. Her manner toward me,boisterous and quite out of keeping with our respective positions andsexes, could almost be called friendly. During the return to Southamptonshe constantly clapped me on the back and shouted, "It's over, Weener;it's all over now."

  "But it isnt over," I protested. "Your spray hadnt the slightest directeffect on the Grass."

  "Oh, that. That's nothing. A mere impediment. A matter of time only."

  "Time only! Good God, do you realize the Grass is halfway throughIreland? That we are surrounded now on four sides?"

  "A lastminute rescue is quite in the best tradition. Don't disturbyourself; you will live to gloat over the deaths of better men."

  I urged the PM to be cautious about overoptimism in giving out the news.He nodded his head solemnly in agreement, but he evidently couldntcommunicate whatever wisdom he possessed to the BBC announcer, for he,in butter voice, spoke as though Miss Francis had actually destroyed agreat section of the weed upon the French coast. There were celebrationsin the streets of London and a vast crowd visited the cenotaph and sang_Rule Britannia_.

  _September 18_: Hoping to find F in a calmer mood, I asked her todayjust how long she meant by "a matter of time"? She shrugged it off. "Notmore than four or five months," she said blithely.

  "In a month at most the Grass will be in Britain."

  "Let it come," she responded callously. "We shall take the _Sisyphus_and conclude our work there."

  "But millions will die in the meantime," I protested.

  She turned on me with what I can only describe as tigrish ferocity. "Didyou think of the millions you condemned to death when you refused tosell concentrates to the Asiatic refugees?"

  "How could I sell to people who couldnt buy?"

  "And the millions who died because you refused them employment?"

  "Am I responsible for those too shiftless to fend for themselves?"

  "'Am I my brother's keeper?' If fifty million Englishmen die because Icannot hasten the process of trial and error, the guilt is mine and Iadmit it. I do not seek to exculpate myself by pointing a finger at youor by silly and pompous evasions of my responsibility. If the Grasscomes before I am ready, the fault is mine. In the meantime, while onecreature remains alive, even if his initials be A W, I shall seek topreserve him. As long as there is a foothold on land I shall try onland; and when that fails we shall board the _Sisyphus_ and finish ourwork there, somewhere in the Atlantic."

  "You mean you definitely abandon hope of perfecting your compound beforeEngland goes?"

  "I abandon nothing," she replied. "I think it's quite possible I'llfinish in time to save England, but I can't afford to do anything butlook forward to the worst. And that is that we'll be driven to thesea."

  I was appalled by the picture her words elicited: a few ships containingthe survivors; a world covered with the Grass.

  "And when success is attained we shall fight our way back inch by inch."

  But this piece of bombast didnt hearten me. I had no desire to fight ourway back inch by inch; I wanted at least a fragment of civilizationsalvaged.

  _September 19_: F has not been the only one to think of the high seas asa final refuge. The London office has been literally besieged by men ofwealth eager to pay any price to charter one of our ships. I have givenorders to grant no more charters for the present.

  _September 20_: The enthusiasm is subsiding and people are beginning toask how long it will be before they can expect the reconquest of theContinent to begin. BBC spoke cautiously about "perfection" of thecompound for the first time, opening the way to the implication that itdoesnt work as yet. Added quite a bit to my manuscript.

  _September 21_: Mrs H, in very dignified mood, approached me; said sheheard I had made plans to leave England in case the Grass threatened.She asked nothing for herself, she said, being quite content to acceptwhatever fate Providence had in store for her, but, would I take herdaughter and family along on the _Sisyphus_? They would be quite useful,she added lamely.

  I said I would give the matter my attention, but assured her there wasno immediate danger.

  _September 22_: Grass on the Isle of Man.

  _September 23_: Ordered stocking of the _Sisyphus_ with as muchconcentrates as she can carry. The supply will be ample for a full crew,F's staff and myself for at least six months.

  _September 24_: Ive known for years that F is insane, but her latestphase is so fantastic and preposterous I can hardly credit it. Shedemands flatly the _Sisyphus_ take along at least fifty "nubile femalesin order to restock the world after its reconquest." After catching mybreath I argued with her. The prospect of England's loss was by no meanscertain yet.

  "Good. We'll give the girls a seavoyage and land them back safe andsound."

  "We have enough supplies for six months; if we take along thesesuperfluous passengers our time will be cut to less than three."

  Her answer was a brutal piece of blackmail. "No women, no go."

  If F were a young man instead of an elderly woman I could understandthis aberration better.

  _September 25_: It seems Mrs H's grandchildren are all girls betweentwelve and eighteen, which leaves the problem of fulfilling F'sultimatum to finding fortyseven others. I have delegated the selectionto Mrs H.

  _September 26_: Grass on Skye for the second time. This invasion was notrepulsed.

  _September 27_: The cyclone fans have been set up from Moray Firth tothe Firth of Lorne. I am in two minds about asking the Tharios to joinus.

  The bill authorizing the construction of a vertical city at Stonehengepassed Commons.

  _September 28_: Grass reported near Aberdeen. Panic in Scotland. No moretrain service.

  _September 29_: Day of fasting, humiliation and prayer proclaimed by theArchbishop of Canterbury. Grass south of the Dee. All mines shut down.

  _September 30_: Every seaworthy vessel, and many not seaworthy, nowunder charter. I have ordered all remaining stores of concentratesloaded on our own hulls, to be manned by skeleton crews. They will standby the _Sisyphus_ on her voyage. Lack of railway transportation makingthings difficult.

  _October 1_: They have actually broken ground at Stonehenge for Burlet'sfantastic city.

  _October 2_: Wrote on my book for nearly twelve solid hours. The postalservice has been stopped.

  _October 3_: Hearing the royal family had made no plans for departure,the London office ventured to offer them accommodations on one of ourships. I had always heard the House of Windsor was meticulous in itspoliteness, but I cannot characterize their rejection of our wellmeantaid as anything but rude.

  _October 4_: Mrs H asks, Are we to live solely on concentrates now theshops are shut? My query as to whether this seemed objectionable to herwas evaded.

  _October 5_: Grass in Inverness and Perthshire.

  _October 6_: F announces she is ready for another test. Under presentconditions, the journey to Scotland being out of the question, wedecided to use the _Sisyphus_ again and the French coast. Leavingtomorrow.

  _October 11_: This constant series of frustrations is beyond endurance.In spite of F's noncommittal pessimism anticipating success only afterthe Grass has covered England, I feel she is merely making some sort ofpropitiatory gesture when she looks on the darkest side of the picturethat way. As for myself I'm convinced the Grass will be stopped in aweek or so. But in the meantime F's work advances by the inch, only tobe set back again and again.

/>   We repeated the previous test with just enough added success to give ourfailure the quality of supreme exasperation. This time there was noquestion but what the growth sprayed actually withered within twentyfourhours. But it was not wiped out and not long afterward it was overrunand covered up by a new and vigorous mass. Such a victory early in thefight would have meant something; now it is too late for such piecemealdestruction. We must have a counteragent which communicates its lethaleffect to a larger area of the Grass than is actually touched by it--orat very least makes the affected spot untenable for future growth.

  What help is it for F to rub her hands smugly and say, "We're on theright track, all right"? Weve been on the right track for months, butthe train doesnt get anywhere.

  _October 12_: Columbus Day.

  _October 13_: Grass in Fife and Stirling. BBC urges calm.

  _October 14_: Rumor has it work abandoned at Stonehenge. It was afutile gesture anyway. I'm sure F will perfect the counteragent anyday.

  _October 15_: Mrs H announced she has completed her selection of fiftyyoung women, adding, "I hope they will prove satisfactory, sir." For ahorrible moment I wondered if she thought I was arranging for a harem.

  _October 16_: Decided, purely as a matter of convenience and not frompanic, such as is beginning to affect even the traditionally stolidBritish, to move aboard the _Sisyphus_. Grass on the outskirts ofEdinburgh.

  _October 17_: In a burst of energy last night I brought my history downto the Grass in Europe.

  Disconcerting hitch. Most of the _Sisyphus'_ crew, including thecaptain, want to take their wives along. I find it difficult to believethem all uxoriously wed--at any rate this is not a pleasure excursion.Agreed the captain should take his and told him to effect somecompromise on the others. The capacity of the _Sisyphus_ is not elastic.

  _October 18_: Grass almost to the Tweed. PM on the wireless with theassurance a counteragent will be perfected within the week. F furious;wanted to know if I couldnt control my politicians better. I answeredmeekly--really, her anger was ludicrous--that I was an American citizen,not part of the British electorate, and therefore had no influence overthe prime minister of Great Britain. Seriously, however, perhaps thepremature announcement will spur her on.

  The erratic phone service finally stopped altogether.

  _October 19_: Riots and looting--unEnglish manifestations carried out ina very English way. Hysterical orators called for the destruction of allforeign refugees from the Grass, or at very least their exclusion fromthe benefits of the lootings. In every case the mob answered them inalmost identical language: "Fair play," "Share and share alike," "Yernyme Itler, maybe?" "Come orf it, sonny, oo er yew? Gord Orlmighty'sfurriner, aint E?" Having heckled the speakers, they proceededcheerfully to clean out all stocks of available goods--the refugeesgetting their just shares. There must be a peculiar salubrity about theEnglish air. Otherwise Britons could not act so differently at home andabroad.

  Thankful indeed all Consolidated Pemmican stores safely loaded.

  _October 20_: As anticipated, the Grass crossed the Tweed intoNorthumberland, but quite unexpectedly England has also been invadedfrom another quarter. Norfolk has the Grass from Yarmouth to Cromer. F,the PM, and myself hanged in effigy. Shall not tarry much longer.

  _October 21_: Durham and Suffolk. Consulted the captain about a set ofauxiliary sails for the _Sisyphus_. Moving aboard tonight.

  _October 22_: Heard indirectly that the Tharios had managed to charter aseagoing tug on shares with friends. This takes a great load off mymind.

  Postponed moving to the ship in order to superintend packing of personalpossessions, including the manuscript of my history. F says it is stillnot impossible to perfect compound before the Grass reaches London.

  _October 23_: On board the _Sisyphus_. What has become of the stolidheroism of the English people? On the way down to the ship, I ran into acrowd no better behaved than the adherents of the Republic One andIndivisible. I mention the episode lightly, but it was no laughingmatter. I was lucky to escape with my life.

  Nervous and upset with the strain. I shall not return to The Ivies tillthe Grass begins its retreat. Too restless to continue my book. Pacedthe deck a long time.

  _October 24_: The fifty girls arrived, and a more maddening cargo Ican't imagine. I gave orders to keep them forward, but their shrillpresence nevertheless penetrates aft.

  I hear all electricity has been cut off. Grass in Yorkshire.

  _October 25_: F came aboard with the other scientists and immediatelywanted to know why we didnt set sail. I asked her if her work could becarried on any more easily at sea. She shrugged her shoulders. I pointedout that only rats leave a sinking ship and England was far fromovercome. She favored me with one of her fixed stares.

  "You are dithery, Weener. Your epigrams have lost their jaunty air ofdiscovery and your face is almost green."

  "You would not expect me to remain unaffected by the events around us,Miss Francis."

  "Wouldnt I?" she retorted incomprehensibly and went below to hercabin-laboratory.

  The Grass is reported in Essex and Hertfordshire. I understand there areat least two other ships equipped for research and manned by Englishscientists. It would serve F right if they perfected a counteragentfirst.

  October 26: Have ordered our accompanying ships to lie offshore, lestthey be boarded by fearcrazed refugees, for the Grass is now in thevicinity of London and England is in a horrible state.

  October 27: BBC transmitting from Penzance. Faint.

  _101._ _November 3_: On board the _Sisyphus_ off Scilly. The last daysof England have passed. Heightening the horror, the BBC in its finalmoments forwent its policy of soothing its listeners and urging calmnessupon them. Instead, it organized an amazing news service, usingthousands of pigeons carrying messages from eyewitnesses to the stationat Penzance to give a minutebyminute account of the end. Dispassionatelyand detachedly, as though this were some ordinary disaster, announcerafter announcer went on the air and read reports; heartpiercing,anticlimactic, tragic, trivial, noble and thoroughly English reports....

  The people vented their futile rage and terror in mass pyromania.Building after building, city after city was burned to the ground. But,according to the BBC, the murderous frenzy of the Continent was notduplicated. Inanimate things suffered; priceless art objects were kickedaround in the streets, but houses were carefully emptied of inhabitantsbefore being put to the torch.

  These were the spectacular happenings; the emphatic events. Behind them,and in the majority, were quieter, duller transactions. Churches andchapels filled with people sitting quiet in pews, meditating; gatheringsin the country, where the participants looked at the sun, earth and sky;vast meetings in Hyde Park proclaiming the indissoluble brotherhood ofman, even in the face of extinction.

  We heard the Queen and her consort remained in Buckingham Palace to thelast, but this may be only romantic rumor. At all events, England isgone now, after weathering a millennium of unsuccessful invasions. Fromwhere I sit peacefully, bringing my history uptodate and jotting thesenotes in my diary, I can see, faintly with the naked eye or quitedistinctly through a telescope, that emerald gem set in a silver sea.The great cities are covered; the barren moors, the lovely lakes, thegentle streams, the forbidding crags are all mantled in one grassysward. England is gone, and with it the world. What few men offorethought who have taken to ships, what odd survivors there may be inarctic wastes or on lofty Andean or Himalayan peaks, together with thecomplement of the _Sisyphus_ and its accompanying escort are all thatsurvive of humanity. It is an awesome thought.

  _Later_: Reading this over it seems almost as though I had been untrueto my fundamental philosophy. The world has gone, vanished; but perhapsit is for the best, afterall. We shall start again in a few days with aclean slate, picking up from where we left off--for we have books andtools and men of learning and intelligence--to start a new and betterworld the moment the Grass retreats. I am heartened by the thought.

  Below,
Miss Francis and her coworkers are striving for the solution.After the last experiment there can be no question as to the outcome. Anhour ago I would have written that it was deplorable this outcomecouldnt be achieved before the latest victory of the Grass. Now I beginto believe it may be a lucky delay.

  _November 4_: What meaning have dates now? We shall have to have a newcalendar--Before the Grass and After the Grass.

  _November 5_: Moved by some incomprehensible morbidity I had a stainlesssteel chest, complete with floats, made before embarkation in order toplace the manuscript and diary in it should the impossible happen. Ihave it now on the deck beside me as a reminder never to give way to aweak despair. F promises me it is a matter of days if not hours till wecan return to our native element.

  _November 8_: Another test. Almost completely successful. F certain thenext one will do it. My emotions are exhausted.

  _November 9_: I have completed my history of the Grass down to thecommencement of this diary. I shall take a wellearned rest from myliterary labors for a few days. F announces a new test--"the final one,Weener, the final one"--for tomorrow.

  _November 10_: Experiment with the now perfected compound has been putoff one more day. F is completely calm and confident of the outcome. Sheis below now, making lastminute preparations. For the first time she hasinfected me with her certitude--although I never doubted ultimatesuccess--and I feel tomorrow will actually see the beginning of the endfor the Grass which started so long ago on Mrs Dinkman's lawn. How far Iand the world have come since then!

  Would I go back to that day if I had the power? It seems an absurdquestion, but there is no doubt we who have survived have gainedspiritual stature. Of course I do not mean anything mystical orsupernatural by this observation--we have acquired heightenedsensitivity and new perceptions. Brother Paul, ridiculous mountebank,was yet correct in this--the Grass chastised us rightly. Whatever sinsmankind committed have been wiped out and expiated.

  _Later_: We are out of sight of land; nothing but sea and sky, no greenanywhere. On the eve of liberation all sorts of absurd and irrelevantthoughts jump about in my mind. The strange lady ... Joe's symphony,burned by his mother. Whatever happened to William Rufus Le ffacaseafter he eschewed his profession for superstition? And Mrs Dinkman? Forsome annoying reason I am beset with the thought of Mrs Dinkman.

  I can see her pincenez illadjusted on her nose. I can hear herhighpitched complaining voice bargaining with me over the cost ofinoculating her lawn. The ugly stuff of her tasteless dress is before myeyes. It is so real to me I swear I can see the poor, irregular lines ofthe weaving.

  _Still later_: I have sat here in a dull lethargy, undoubtedly inducedby my overwrought state, quite understandable in the light of what is tohappen in a few hours, my eyes on the seams of the deck, reviewing allthe things I have written in my book, preparing myself, a way, for theglorious and triumphant finish. But I am beset by delusions. A momentago it was the figure of Mrs Dinkman and now--

  And now, by all the horror that has overcome mankind, it is a waving,creeping, insatiable runner of the Grass.

  _Again_: I have made no attempt to pinch off the green stolon. It mustbe three inches long by now and the slim end is waving in the wind,seeking for a suitable spot to assure its hold doubly. I touched it withmy hand, but I could not bring myself to harm it.

  I managed to drag my eyes away from the plant and go below to see MissFrancis. I stood outside the cabin for a long time, listening to thenoise and laughter, coupled with a note of triumph I had never heardbefore and which I'm sure indicates indubitable success. There can be noquestion of that.

  There can be no question of that.

  The stolon has pressed itself into another seam.

  The blades are very green. They have opened themselves to the sun andare sucking strength for the new shoots. I have put my manuscript intothe casket which floats, leaving it open for this diary if it should benecessary. But of course such a contingency is absurd.

  Absolutely absurd.

  The Grass has found another seam in the deck.